Airtel Africa API

Name: Airtel Africa API
Brand: Airtel Africa API
Availability: InStock

★ Only Publicly Available OpenAPI DocumentPaymentsPayment ProcessingapiKey2 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Initiate Airtel Money payments and check payment status across Airtel Africa's mobile money markets.

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the Airtel Africa API to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Airtel Africa API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.

Step 1: Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Step 2: Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with Airtel Africa API.

Create a mobile money payment request via POST /payments

Look up the current status of a previously initiated payment via GET /payments/{id}

Support payment flows across Airtel Africa's mobile money operating countries

GET STARTED

Start building with Airtel Africa API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

Use Cases

Patterns agents use Airtel Africa API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Mobile Money Checkout

Accept payment from an Airtel Money wallet during checkout by issuing POST /payments with the amount, currency, and customer's mobile number. Airtel returns a payment ID; poll GET /payments/{id} or wait for an out-of-band callback to confirm the payment cleared. Works across Airtel Africa's operating countries that support mobile money.

Create a payment for KES 1500 to mobile number 254700000000 and return the payment ID

Payment Status Reconciliation

Reconcile orders against Airtel Money payments by polling GET /payments/{id} until the status reaches a terminal state (successful or failed). Useful for back-office reconciliation, customer support tools that need to confirm payment receipt, and order-fulfilment systems that gate shipping on payment success.

Look up payment ID 'pmt-abc-123' and return its current status and last updated timestamp

Agent-Initiated Mobile Money Charge via Jentic

An agent processes a mobile money charge by searching Jentic for the create-payment operation, loading the schema, and executing under the X-API-Key header managed by Jentic. The agent never sees the raw API key. Status checks are likewise exposed through Jentic for closing the loop.

Search Jentic for 'create an airtel money payment', load the operation, and execute it with amount, currency, and customer mobile number

Key Endpoints

2 endpoints — jentic publishes the only available openapi specification for airtel africa api, keeping it validated and agent-ready.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

POST

/payments

Create an Airtel Money payment

GET

/payments/{id}

Get the status of a payment

POST

/payments

Create an Airtel Money payment

GET

/payments/{id}

Get the status of a payment

Why Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

Airtel Africa API keys are stored encrypted in the Jentic vault. The X-API-Key header is constructed at execution time and the key never enters the agent's context, important for PCI- and PSP-aligned workflows.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search by intent ('create an airtel money payment', 'check payment status') and Jentic returns the matching POST or GET operation with its body and path parameter schema.

Time to first call

Direct Airtel Africa integration: 5-10 days including partner onboarding, key issuance, and reconciliation flows. Through Jentic: under 1 hour once the key is loaded — search, load schema, execute.

FAQs

Specific to using Airtel Africa API through Jentic.

Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for Airtel Africa API?

Airtel Africa does not publish a public OpenAPI specification. Jentic generates and maintains this spec so that AI agents and developers can call Airtel Africa API via structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. Get started at https://app.jentic.com/sign-up.

What authentication does the Airtel Africa API use?

Airtel Africa uses an API key passed in the X-API-Key header on every request. Through Jentic the key is stored encrypted and the header is injected at execution time so the raw key never enters the agent context.

Can I create an Airtel Money payment with this API?

Yes. POST /payments accepts amount, currency, and the customer's mobile number and returns a payment ID. The payment then transitions through pending into a terminal status retrievable via GET /payments/{id}.

What are the rate limits for the Airtel Africa API?

Airtel Africa applies per-key throttling that varies by partner agreement; the developer portal at developers.airtel.africa is authoritative. Treat HTTP 429 as a backoff-and-retry signal and avoid bursty checkout patterns.

How do I check a payment's status through Jentic?

Install with pip install jentic, search for 'check airtel money payment status', load the GET /payments/{id} operation, and execute with the payment id. Jentic injects the X-API-Key header automatically.

Which countries does the Airtel Africa API cover?

Airtel Money operates across 14+ sub-Saharan African markets including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, and Rwanda. Coverage and currency support depend on the partner agreement and per-country regulatory rules.