Startbutton MoR Report Tracks 1.9M Africa Transactions

In Short

Startbutton has released its 2026 State of Merchant of Record in Africa report. It is based on 1.9 million payments across 200+ merchants and 15 markets.

What Happened

Startbutton says the data covers August 2025 to July 2026. The report focuses on what it costs to run payment infrastructure across African markets.

A key theme is how small percentage differences can turn into large revenue impacts at scale. In Nigeria, the report says merchants using virtual account rails, which are bank transfer accounts generated per customer or transaction, recorded a 99.45% approval rate across 1.19 million transactions. Startbutton compares that with a broader market average of 96.85%, and says the gap translated into an estimated $2.4 million in recovered revenue for one set of merchants.

In Ghana, the report puts approval rates at 88.16%. It links much of the drop to MTN MoMo downtime, meaning periods when the mobile money network is unavailable and payments fail.

The report also highlights foreign exchange risk. It includes an example of a Ghana-based merchant who lost $10,731 in seven days after the exchange rate moved 9.87% while funds remained unconverted. Over the full 12-month window, Startbutton says the Ghanaian cedi traded across a 23.7% range, and that merchants settling in local currency saw adverse seven-day swings more than half the time.

Startbutton also argues that building payments in-house can be expensive. It cites Talk360 CEO Hans Osnabrugge saying the company spent about $500,000 a year maintaining its African payments setup before moving to a Merchant of Record model, which is a service where a provider becomes the official seller for payments, tax, and compliance.

Why It Matters

For African SaaS and cross-border businesses, approval rate, settlement windows, and FX exposure can be hidden costs that sit below pricing and marketing. Startbutton’s data suggests infrastructure choices can materially change revenue capture, especially in high-volume markets like Nigeria, and reliability issues can drag conversion in markets like Ghana.

The report is free to download and includes sections on approval rates, FX exposure across multiple currencies, settlement delay costs, and digital tax enforcement trends.