Beyond Cash-In and Cash-Out: The Next Generation of Agent Banking

Why Africa’s agent networks are evolving from cash-conversion points into distributed platforms for payments, commerce, credit and digital financial services

Introduction: The Agent Is Becoming a Financial Access Point

Agent banking has played a fundamental role in the expansion of digital finance across Africa.

For millions of customers, agents provide the physical connection between cash and digital financial services. Customers deposit cash into mobile money accounts, withdraw digital balances, send transfers, pay bills and receive support without visiting a traditional bank branch.

That role remains important. In 2025, mobile money agents globally processed approximately $430 billion in cash-ins, up 20% from the previous year. The number of registered agents reached 30 million, with 11 million active monthly. Much of the growth in active agents came from Africa, particularly East Africa. (GSMA)

But the financial ecosystem around those agents is changing.

Mobile money is expanding beyond transfers. Merchant payments are growing rapidly. Credit, savings and insurance are increasingly integrated into digital financial platforms. Instant payment systems are expanding. POS infrastructure is becoming smarter. APIs are connecting financial services that once operated independently.

The next generation of agent banking will therefore not be defined only by how efficiently an agent converts cash into digital value.

The bigger question is:

How many financial services can be delivered through the agent infrastructure already distributed across communities?

Cash-In and Cash-Out Built the Network

Cash-in/cash-out, or CICO, solved a fundamental problem in digital finance.

Digital money is only useful at scale when customers have practical ways to move between physical and digital value.

Agents created that bridge.

Instead of building expensive branches, financial providers could establish distributed networks of local businesses equipped to perform basic financial transactions.

The model dramatically extended the reach of financial services.

Agents also became more than transaction points. They helped customers open accounts, understand products and resolve basic problems. GSMA research has consistently described agents as the human face of mobile money, particularly for customers entering digital finance for the first time. (GSMA)

But an infrastructure built initially to solve the cash-conversion problem can support much more.

Mobile Money Itself Has Already Moved Beyond CICO

The evolution of agent banking reflects a larger transformation in mobile money.

Mobile money processed more than $2 trillion globally in 2025, with 2.3 billion registered accounts and 593 million accounts active monthly. Most new registered and active accounts came from Sub-Saharan Africa. (GSMA)

More importantly, the types of transactions are changing.

Merchant payments reached approximately $155 billion in 2025, growing by almost half and becoming the fastest-growing mobile money use case. Providers are also increasingly offering adjacent services such as credit, savings and insurance. (GSMA)

This matters for agents.

If the financial platform becomes more sophisticated, the physical distribution network supporting it can evolve as well.

The agent can move from being primarily a cash gateway toward becoming a distributed financial-services endpoint.

The Agent Can Become a Merchant Payment Hub

Merchant payments represent one of the most natural extensions.

Many agents are already merchants themselves.

The same infrastructure used to facilitate deposits and withdrawals can increasingly support payment acceptance.

A modern agent location could combine:

Cash Services + Mobile Money + QR + POS + Bank Transfers + Merchant Payments

This creates a more productive financial endpoint.

Instead of earning primarily from CICO commissions, the agent can participate in a broader range of transaction flows.

For PSPs, it also means that agent and merchant infrastructure can begin converging.

A merchant does not necessarily need one system for selling goods and another for providing financial services.

The same technology stack can increasingly support both.

POS Infrastructure Changes What an Agent Can Do

Modern POS systems make this evolution much more practical.

Traditional agent infrastructure may have been built around basic mobile devices or dedicated transaction terminals.

Smart POS systems can support considerably more functionality.

Depending on the provider and regulatory environment, one device can potentially provide access to:

• deposits and withdrawals
• merchant payments
• transfers
• bill payments
• account services
• QR payments
• customer onboarding
• transaction histories

The POS therefore becomes the agent’s financial workstation.

More importantly, because modern POS infrastructure is software-driven, new services can be added without redesigning the entire physical network.

That makes the agent network programmable.

Agent Networks Can Become Distribution Infrastructure

This is one of the most important strategic shifts.

Financial companies often think of agent networks as a service.

They may be better understood as distribution infrastructure.

Once thousands of physical financial access points exist, additional products can potentially be distributed through the same network.

That could include:

Payments → Wallets → Savings → Credit → Insurance → Commerce Services

The economics are attractive because the physical distribution layer already exists.

Instead of building a separate distribution network for every financial product, providers can use common infrastructure.

This can be particularly valuable in markets where physical proximity and human assistance still influence financial adoption.

The Human Element Still Matters

The expansion of digital finance does not automatically eliminate the need for agents.

In fact, increasingly sophisticated digital products can create new support requirements.

Customers may need assistance with:

• onboarding
• identity verification
• unfamiliar digital services
• payment errors
• fraud awareness
• financial literacy

GSMA research on digital financial literacy has identified knowledge and confidence as continuing barriers to broader adoption of digital financial services in African markets. (GSMA)

Agents can help bridge that gap.

The future agent may therefore combine technology with something purely digital channels struggle to provide: local trust and human assistance.

Customer Onboarding Can Move Closer to the Community

Identity and onboarding are another major opportunity.

Opening a financial account traditionally required interaction with a bank or other financial institution.

Agent-assisted digital onboarding can move that process closer to customers.

Depending on local regulation, agents can help customers:

• submit identification
• complete registration
• verify information
• activate accounts
• understand financial products

Digital identity infrastructure could make this process more efficient.

Instead of every financial provider repeatedly collecting the same information, reusable digital credentials may eventually allow verified information to move securely between participating services.

The agent could then become an assisted entry point into a much broader digital financial ecosystem.

Agents Could Become Gateways to Credit

Credit creates another opportunity.

Many individuals and small businesses across African markets have limited access to traditional lending.

Agent infrastructure can help connect them to digital lending services.

The agent does not necessarily need to make the lending decision.

Instead, the infrastructure can connect the customer to a lender while data and automated systems handle underwriting.

The process could become:

Agent → Customer Identification → Digital Application → Credit Assessment → Wallet/Account Disbursement

For small merchants, transaction histories generated through POS and payment infrastructure can potentially provide additional signals for credit assessment.

The agent network becomes the distribution layer.

The lending platform provides the financial product.

Agents Themselves Need Better Access to Credit

There is another side to the lending opportunity: agents need financing too.

One persistent problem in agent banking is liquidity.

An agent needs sufficient cash and electronic float to process customer transactions.

If either becomes insufficient, transactions must be refused.

GSMA research in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and Mozambique found that working capital and float management remained important challenges, particularly in markets where agents depended heavily on CICO revenue. (GSMA)

Agent transaction data can potentially help address this.

If infrastructure understands an agent’s historical transaction volumes, liquidity patterns and demand cycles, financial providers can potentially offer more targeted working-capital facilities.

Instead of static financing, the system could eventually predict when liquidity is likely to become constrained.

AI Could Help Predict Agent Liquidity

This is where artificial intelligence becomes relevant.

Agent networks generate large volumes of operational data.

An intelligent platform could analyze:

• historical withdrawals
• cash-in patterns
• time of day
• day of week
• seasonal demand
• local events
• agent balances

and estimate future liquidity requirements.

An agent could receive an alert before running out of electronic float.

A platform could recommend rebalancing.

Subject to appropriate controls, short-term working capital could potentially be offered based on expected transaction demand.

This transforms liquidity management from reactive operations into predictive infrastructure.

Interoperability Can Make Agents More Valuable

Many agent networks historically developed around individual providers.

A particular agent served customers of a particular mobile money service or financial institution.

That can create fragmentation.

A customer may need to locate different agents depending on which platform they use.

Interoperability creates another model.

One agent endpoint could potentially interact with several financial providers through common infrastructure.

Instead of:

Provider A → Agent Network A

Provider B → Agent Network B

Provider C → Agent Network C

the ecosystem moves toward:

Multiple Providers → Shared Infrastructure → Agent

This can increase transaction opportunities for agents while making services more convenient for customers.

APIs Can Turn Agent Networks Into Open Platforms

APIs are essential to this model.

A closed agent system can only provide the services built by its original provider.

An API-enabled platform can connect external financial products.

A common agent interface could theoretically connect:

• banks
• mobile money providers
• PSPs
• bill-payment platforms
• lenders
• insurers
• remittance providers

GSMA has previously highlighted developer tools and APIs as important mechanisms for expanding mobile money beyond basic transactions into services such as credit, savings, insurance, e-commerce and enterprise solutions. (GSMA)

The agent becomes the physical endpoint of an API ecosystem.

Cross-Border Payments Could Reach the Agent Layer

Cross-border payments represent another important opportunity.

International remittances often eventually interact with local cash and payment ecosystems.

Agent networks can provide the final distribution layer.

But better infrastructure could allow them to support more than simply cashing out a remittance.

A recipient might receive funds into a wallet and then use the same agent ecosystem to:

• pay bills
• make merchant payments
• transfer funds
• save part of the balance
• access other financial services

The objective becomes keeping more financial activity digital rather than immediately converting every incoming payment back into cash.

That can strengthen the economics of the broader ecosystem.

Agent Banking Can Support Small-Business Digitization

The next-generation agent can also support local merchants.

Small businesses may need help accessing:

• digital payment acceptance
• POS systems
• QR payments
• merchant wallets
• transaction reporting
• working-capital products

Agent networks already possess physical distribution and local relationships.

They can therefore become channels through which PSPs distribute merchant technology.

The same agent who helps consumers access digital finance could help small businesses begin accepting digital payments.

This creates a multiplier effect.

The agent network supports both sides of the transaction ecosystem.

Fraud Prevention Needs to Evolve With Agent Capabilities

More capabilities also create more risk.

Agents can be targets for:

• account takeover
• identity fraud
• social engineering
• transaction manipulation
• unauthorized withdrawals

GSMA research has also identified fraud and robbery as significant concerns for agents themselves. (GSMA)

As agent infrastructure becomes more sophisticated, fraud prevention needs to become more sophisticated as well.

Platforms can increasingly evaluate signals such as:

• device identity
• agent location
• transaction velocity
• unusual transaction values
• customer behavior
• agent history

AI can help identify unusual patterns across large networks.

Security therefore needs to evolve alongside functionality.

The Economics of Agent Banking Must Change

There is also a commercial reason for expanding agent capabilities.

A business model heavily dependent on CICO commissions can become vulnerable as digital transactions increase.

GSMA has previously warned that greater digitization can create pressure on traditional CICO-focused agent economics and has highlighted revenue diversification as an important component of sustainable agent networks. (GSMA)

This creates a paradox.

Successful digitization could gradually reduce the relative importance of the transaction that originally made the agent network valuable.

The answer is not necessarily fewer agents.

It is more productive agents.

An agent capable of generating revenue through multiple financial services has a stronger business model than one dependent almost entirely on withdrawal fees.

From Transaction Commissions to Service Economics

The agent revenue model can therefore evolve from:

Cash-In + Cash-Out Commissions

toward:

CICO + Payments + Onboarding + Merchant Services + Credit + Remittances + Additional Financial Services

This diversification matters for network sustainability.

Agents need sufficient economics to remain active.

Providers need reliable physical coverage.

Customers need accessible service points.

A broader product portfolio can align all three interests.

The Next Agent Network Will Be Data-Driven

As agent platforms become digital, operators gain better visibility into network performance.

They can analyze:

• transaction volumes
• agent activity
• liquidity shortages
• geographic demand
• service availability
• fraud patterns
• product adoption

That allows providers to manage agent networks more intelligently.

Instead of simply asking how many agents are registered, PSPs can ask:

Which agents are active?

Which services are customers using?

Where are liquidity shortages occurring?

Which locations need additional capacity?

Which products perform best in which areas?

The agent network becomes measurable infrastructure.

AI Agents Could Eventually Help Operate Agent Networks

The next step could be agentic AI.

An AI system could continuously monitor a distributed network and identify operational problems.

For example, it could detect that several agents in one area are approaching liquidity constraints.

It could analyze historical demand, identify nearby sources of float and recommend a rebalancing strategy.

Another AI agent could monitor suspicious transactions across the network and escalate unusual behavior.

The architecture becomes:

Physical Agent → Digital Platform → Data Layer → AI Intelligence → Financial Services

The human agent remains the local interface.

AI helps operate the infrastructure behind them.

The Future Agent Is a Financial Micro-Hub

The transformation can ultimately be summarized as a change in the function of the agent location.

The traditional agent primarily converts:

Cash ↔ Digital Money

The next-generation agent can connect:

Cash + Payments + Identity + Wallets + Credit + Merchant Services + Remittances + Financial Support

The agent becomes a local financial micro-hub.

That is particularly powerful in communities where building a traditional financial branch would be economically difficult.

Instead of replicating the branch model, digital infrastructure allows a much lighter physical network to provide increasingly sophisticated financial services.

What This Means for PSPs

For PSPs, agent banking should increasingly be viewed as an infrastructure strategy rather than simply a distribution strategy.

The opportunity is not merely to deploy more agents.

It is to increase what each connected agent can do.

That requires infrastructure capable of supporting:

• multiple payment methods
• POS
• wallets
• identity
• lending
• APIs
• interoperability
• fraud monitoring
• agent management
• analytics

The most valuable network may therefore not necessarily be the one with the greatest number of registered agents.

It may be the network capable of delivering the broadest useful set of services reliably through each endpoint.

How Unipesa Fits Into the Next Generation of Agent Banking

Unipesa, a portfolio company of Velex Investments, is focused on building scalable fintech infrastructure for businesses operating across African markets.

Its technology supports POS infrastructure, payment orchestration, API-first integrations, digital wallets, lending solutions, communication services and international payment capabilities.

These capabilities can form complementary layers within next-generation agent infrastructure.

POS provides the physical transaction interface.

Wallet infrastructure connects digital value.

Payment orchestration connects providers and rails.

Lending infrastructure can support additional financial products.

APIs allow services to be integrated rather than built as isolated systems.

For platforms such as Unipesa, the opportunity is therefore broader than enabling another cash-in or cash-out transaction.

It is providing the infrastructure through which physical financial access points can connect to an expanding digital financial ecosystem.

Conclusion

Cash-in and cash-out built agent banking.

They will remain important as long as customers need to move between cash and digital money—and current data shows that demand remains substantial. Agents processed $430 billion in mobile-money cash-ins globally in 2025 alone. (GSMA)

But CICO no longer defines the full opportunity.

Mobile money is becoming a broader financial ecosystem. Merchant payments are expanding rapidly. Credit, savings and insurance are moving into digital platforms. POS devices are becoming programmable. APIs are connecting financial services. AI can improve fraud detection, liquidity management and network operations.

Agent infrastructure can evolve with them.

The progression looks increasingly like:

Cash Point → Transaction Point → Digital Financial Access Point → Merchant & Financial Services Platform

For African PSPs, the next generation of agent banking will therefore be less about putting another terminal in another location.

It will be about making every connected location capable of doing more.

The future agent will not simply help customers turn cash into digital money. The agent will connect customers and merchants to an entire digital financial ecosystem.