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Financial Services on African markets
71 published articles in this view, tagged by country and sector. See all articles
African Wealthtech Needs to Admit It Is a Currency Hedge, Not a Wealth Builder
PiggyVest has over 7 million users. Cowrywise passed 800,000. Bamboo and Risevest have built credible retail US stock access. The marketing language across the category is about building wealth, long-term compounding, and financial independence. Our view is that this framing does not match what customers actually do. African wealthtech is, in practice, a currency hedge. Admitting that would produce better products for customers and better businesses for operators.
Nigeria · Financial Services How to Price and Structure B2B Supply Chain Finance in African Markets
B2B supply chain finance is one of the most promising African fintech categories because it addresses a genuine credit gap with defensible unit economics. OmniPay in Nigeria maintains non-performing loans below 0.5 percent on over USD 800 million annual transactions. Pezesha raised USD 11 million in early 2025 for its B2B lending infrastructure. This guide walks through how to price and structure a supply chain finance product that works in African market conditions.
Nigeria · Financial Services Julaya: The BCEAO-Licensed B2B Payment Platform Rebuilding Francophone West African Finance
Julaya was founded to solve a specific problem in Cote d'Ivoire: why African businesses could not process B2B payments digitally at the scale their operations required. By 2025 the company had received a BCEAO electronic money institution license, becoming one of the first private-sector operators to do so under the updated framework. This is the story of how a small Abidjan-based team built regulated B2B payment infrastructure in a market most pan-African fintechs had been ignoring.
Côte d'Ivoire · Financial Services African Pension Tech and the Long-Term Savings Gap
Only a small fraction of African workers participate in any formal retirement savings system. Nigeria's Contributory Pension Scheme covers approximately 10 million workers out of a workforce of over 70 million. Kenya's NSSF coverage is similarly narrow. PiggyVest has 7 million users saving short-term but pensions remain underserved. Inside the gap, the emerging digital operators, and why retirement may be the next great African fintech opportunity.
Nigeria · Financial Services Mobile Money Agent Economics Are Quietly Breaking
Mobile money in Africa runs on a foundation of approximately 300,000 M-Pesa agents, several hundred thousand more across Nigerian operators, and uncounted thousands more across the continent. Practitioners inside the sector have started to whisper about something industry reports do not yet capture: the agent economics that made mobile money work are quietly deteriorating. If this pattern holds, the consequences for African digital finance are significant.
Kenya · Financial Services Yellow Card: Building the B2B Stablecoin Infrastructure Layer for African Corporates
Yellow Card operates in approximately 20 African countries providing stablecoin on-ramps and off-ramps to businesses that cannot access US dollars through their commercial banks. While most African crypto coverage focuses on retail speculation, Yellow Card built a B2B corporate treasury infrastructure business that serves the real operational need of African companies during a foreign exchange shortage era. This is the story of how the company positioned itself at the center of that need.
Nigeria · Financial Services CBDCs in Africa: The eNaira, the eCedi, and the Adoption Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
Nigeria launched the eNaira in October 2021, becoming the first African country and only the second globally to roll out a retail CBDC. By 2024, less than 0.5 percent of Nigerians had used it. By 2025, eNaira wallets reached approximately 13 million but 98.5 percent had never been used (IMF). Ghana's eCedi remains in pilot. Morocco and Egypt are running a cross-border CBDC experiment. Inside what has and has not worked, and why private stablecoins are winning where CBDCs have failed.
Nigeria · Financial Services The African Remittance Cost War Is Already Over. Wise Won.
LemFi, Nala, Sendwave, Chipper Cash, and a dozen other African diaspora remittance operators compete fiercely for market share. The RemitSCOPE average cost for Sub-Saharan African remittances was 8.2 percent in Q1 2025. Our view is that this cost war has already been settled at the infrastructure layer, and the winner is Wise. The African operators are competing over the retail presentation of rails they do not actually own.
Nigeria · Financial Services How to Structure a Nigerian Fintech Regulatory Strategy
Nigeria has one of the most complex fintech regulatory environments in Africa, with overlapping authority between the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission, and others. This guide walks through how to think strategically about regulatory fit before you commit to a product direction, rather than discovering the regulatory questions after you have already built something.
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