Kredete, Visa Launch Stablecoin Credit Card Access Across Africa and Gulf Markets

Kredete has partnered with Visa Africa to expand the use of stablecoin-backed cards across Africa and into the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The announcement came during the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator Demo Day at GITEX Africa in Marrakech, where Kredete was recognised among the programme’s standout alumni working on stablecoin card issuance.

The card allows users in more than 50 African countries to spend U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins at over 150 million merchants globally through Visa’s network. The product is built to reduce the cost and unpredictability of cross-border payments, particularly for users navigating multiple currencies and limited access to global financial systems. Payments often pass through multiple intermediaries, adding fees and delays.

Kredete, founded in 2023 by Adeola Adedewe, is a financial platform designed around Africans who live and operate across borders, especially immigrants and diaspora communities.

The platform combines cross-border transfers, stablecoin infrastructure, and a proprietary credit-building engine. As users send money across borders, those transactions contribute to their credit profile, turning remittances into a form of financial history rather than just a transaction.

At the same time, it allows users to hold value in digital dollars, move funds across countries, and access financial tools that would otherwise require a local banking footprint. The Visa partnership connects Kredete’s stablecoin infrastructure to a global payments network, allowing users to spend directly from their balances through a familiar card format rather than navigating separate crypto platforms.

The company’s core product, a Visa-powered credit card built on USDC, is structured to address persistent frictions in African payments,  including high foreign exchange costs, currency volatility, and limited merchant acceptance for cross-border transactions.

As CEO Adeola Adedewe explain, “Our vision is simple: if you support your family financially, that should count toward your creditworthiness. We’re building a system that rewards financial responsibility across borders and making sure that the millions of Africans abroad are finally seen, scored, and served.”

Moving money across borders in Africa remains costly and inconsistent. At the same time, millions of Africans abroad send money home regularly, yet that activity rarely contributes to their financial standing in the countries where they live. Kredete’s model ties these two realities together, reducing the cost of moving money while making that activity count toward credit.

Stablecoins, digital assets typically pegged to the U.S. dollar, offer an alternative. Because they run on blockchain infrastructure, transactions can move faster, settle continuously, and avoid many of the costs associated with traditional systems.

Kredete’s approach is to embed these capabilities into tools people already use. Instead of requiring users to operate fully within crypto platforms, the experience remains similar to traditional payments, with the underlying rails handling settlement and currency conversion.

The company is also extending this model into GCC markets, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, regions closely tied to African remittance flows. Adoption, however, is still uneven. Stablecoins are not yet widely used for everyday retail payments, and users often move between crypto platforms and traditional financial services to complete transactions.