Paying for dinner, booking a guesthouse or sending money home with a phone is now normal across much of Africa. But the shift to digital money has a darker side: cyber incidents cost the continent more than $3 billion between 2019 and 2025, according to INTERPOL's 2025 Africa Cyberthreat Assessment, figures cited by Mastercard.
The scale of the problem is growing fast. Cyberattacks on African organisations jumped 37% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024, and South Africa and Egypt recorded the highest ransomware detection rates in the region. Online scams, ransomware and business email compromise top the list of threats.
For the payments industry, that risk is big business. Mastercard says its Safety Net technology blocked nearly $50 billion in potential fraud across its network over the past three years, and that it has invested more than $12.6 billion in cybersecurity innovation since 2019 — figures the company reports itself and which haven't been independently verified. It has also opened an Africa Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, pulling together governments, banks and businesses to work on digital resilience.
So what does any of this mean if you're actually travelling? Quite a lot, because the modern trip runs on exactly the systems under attack. Flights booked on an app, accommodation paid online, tap-to-pay meals and mobile money withdrawals all happen on your phone — and in many African countries, mobile payments are often the default, not just an option.
Most of the security work happens invisibly in the background, and that's the point. You tap, the transaction clears, nobody thinks about it. But traveller-targeted fraud — fake booking sites, card skimming, phishing emails that look like they're from your airline — thrives on that inattention.
The practical defences are unglamorous but effective. Use secure networks rather than open public Wi-Fi for anything involving money. Keep your phone's operating system and payment apps updated. Switch on multi-factor authentication for your banking and travel accounts before you leave home. And keep an eye on your statements while you're away, so anything odd gets caught early.
Africa's digital economy keeps expanding, and the technology protecting it is expanding with it. The challenge — for banks, payment networks and travellers alike — is making sure trust keeps pace with convenience.
