Centenary Bank has launched Gonza Pay, a secure digital wallet designed to deepen financial inclusion and drive Uganda’s transition toward a cashless economy.
Open to both account holders and non-customers via app and USSD code *211#, the platform marks a major step in the institution’s 2026 SMART Bank transformation goals.
The launch comes at a critical time for the country’s fintech ecosystem. Data from the Bank of Uganda (BOU) shows electronic money transactions surged 28% in 2025, climbing from UGX 285.9 trillion to UGX 366 trillion. Total transaction volumes also jumped 17.3% to hit 9.1 billion.
Yet, despite this explosive growth, Uganda’s financial sector faces a unique paradox: nominal adoption is high, but deep-seated institutional trust remains remarkably low.
Speaking at the Kampala launch, Dr. Tumubweine Twinemanzi, Executive Director of National Payments Systems at the Bank of Uganda, offered a candid assessment of the bottlenecks holding back genuine digital migration. He warned innovators against designing solutions that go looking for a problem to solve.
Uganda’s payment ecosystem has unique peculiarities. Twinemanzi noted that transplanting financial products from foreign jurisdictions rarely works. Instead, sector growth is heavily impeded by customer ignorance, market competition imbalances that keep transaction prices high, and a persistent psychological preference for physical cash.
This behavioural inertia recently forced the central bank to issue a directive aimed at reducing cash withdrawals. The regulator’s goal is to ensure the back-end risks of dealing with digital payments are significantly lower than carrying physical cash.
The scaling of platforms like Gonza Pay will ultimately hinge on how the industry mitigates rising transaction costs and regulatory hurdles.
The ongoing financial year has introduced fresh encumbrances, notably the rising tax burden on mobile money payments. This directly hits the low-income earners, rural savings groups, and informal traders who form the backbone of Centenary Bank’s 3.4 million customer base.
Joseph Balikuddembe, Executive Director of Business at Centenary Bank, acknowledged that while taxes pose a friction point for micro-transactions, the bank is actively engaging the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to find a middle ground that protects financial inclusion.
With over 30 million Ugandans currently eligible for banking services, commercial branches are no longer a viable scaling strategy.
Bank-backed wallets like Gonza Pay offer an alternative to traditional infrastructure, but their ultimate success relies on building consumer trust and lowering the cost of digital entry.