Payments processing multinational Mastercard has launched its Africa Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence – a pan-African initiative designed to strengthen cyber-resilience, enhance collaboration and help safeguard the trust that underpins Africa's expanding digital economy.

The centre extends Mastercard’s expertise and network, which brings global competence and intelligence to one of the world's fastest-growing digital economies, it says.

Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach says the launch reflects Mastercard's long-term commitment to supporting Africa's digital transformation by helping organisations anticipate, withstand and recover from increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats.

The multiyear initiative will begin a phased rollout this year, starting with South Africa and Nigeria. Through this collective model, the centre aims to support the strengthening of cyber-resilience and preparedness and enable more secure digital growth across Africa.

As digital adoption accelerates across Africa, cybersecurity has become an imperative for economic growth, he says.

“Africa is dynamic, fast-growing and ready to scale its digital future. That won't happen without trust. This makes cybersecurity foundational to driving economic resilience and growth across the continent,” Miebach says.

The Africa Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence will support the strengthening of collective defence across the continent by bringing together financial institutions, public sector organisations and businesses to share intelligence, improve preparedness, anticipate threats earlier and build resilience over time.

“By connecting public and private sector efforts and sharing best practices, we can strengthen collective defence and secure a more confident and inclusive digital economy.”

The centre will operate as a pan‑African hub that will be delivered through connected digital platforms and capabilities, and will help participating organisations gain greater visibility into emerging threats.

The greater visibility includes a first‑year ecosystem cyber-risk analysis that will cover up to 50 organisations, as well as access to an Africa‑focused threat intelligence feed that will be developed by Mastercard threat intelligence subsidiary Recorded Future.

Through collaboration among chief information security officers (CISOs), business leaders and security practitioners, and enabled by secure information‑sharing, joint exercises and coordinated responses, the centre will support a more connected and resilient cybersecurity ecosystem across Africa, says Mastercard.

Further, the Centre of Excellence is designed to evolve over time and expand its capabilities as market needs develop. The initiative has three core pillars, namely threat intelligence and strategic insights; collaboration and knowledge sharing; and readiness and resilience.

The threat intelligence and strategic insights will provide participating organisations with Africa-focused threat intelligence, including cybersecurity intelligence assessments across Africa and a shared view of risks.

The collaboration and knowledge sharing pillar aims to bring together CISOs, senior business leaders and security teams to support enhanced collective response capabilities and advance cybersecurity best practices across industries.

Additionally, under its readiness and resilience pillar, the centre will provide ongoing risk monitoring, resilience assessments and scenario-based exercises designed to strengthen response and recovery capabilities to help organisations anticipate emerging threats.

Africa’s digital economy is projected to reach $1.5-trillion by 2030, which requires greater collaboration. Cybercrime across Africa is rising sharply, resulting in significant economic losses each year, with only an estimated 35% of incidents officially reported.

Underreporting is driven by cybermaturity gaps, limited detection capabilities and reputational concerns, thus creating a fragmented view of the threat landscape and weakening coordinated response efforts across the region.

South Africa is the continent’s most targeted market, accounting for about 29% of ransomware attacks and 40% of phishing incidents in Africa, while Nigeria ranks among the most affected markets for ransomware and dark web threat activity, says Mastercard.

“For digitisation to be inclusive, it must be trusted and secure. Mastercard's Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence is a welcome step to meeting a challenge no government or company can solve alone,” says South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Meanwhile, the launch of the Africa Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence marks a further step in Mastercard’s evolution from a payments network to a trusted technology and cyber-intelligence partner, supporting the strengthening of cyber-resilience across Africa and enabling secure, inclusive and sustainable digital growth.

Mastercard intends to help strengthen the digital foundations that underpin inclusive growth by working alongside governments, financial institutions and businesses of all sizes, including small and medium-sized enterprises.

By investing in capabilities that address the continent’s evolving realities, Mastercard seeks to support the development of a more secure and resilient digital future across the markets in which it operates, the company says.