Paul Balogun
The African technology space has been getting so much attention lately and to be more specific financial technology companies also known as Fintech has been on a steady increase.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the continent’s informal economy is one of the largest in the world and it comprises a growing tech community of startups and neobanks.
The industry has been welcomed with a lot of funding capacities as it has gotten more than $1 billion in venture capitals to startups. The IMF stated that fintech is a suitable development for Africa as the African platform for financial technology startups and SMEs would capitalize on the pool of “unbanked” and “underbanked” populations.
The major cities that serve as a home to many of these startup fintech companies are Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos, and Capetown. According to the Findexable Global Fintech Rankings 2020 report “Nairobi boasts of being Africa’s second-largest fintech hub, with an estimated 20 percent of African fintech and an emerging ecosystem of local investors and venture capital firms complemented by a steady rise of international investors and growing interest from a global technology firm.”
The African space is a land of milk and honey for well-positioned financial technology companies that are innovative enough to provide more financial transactions leveraging on technology. Currently, the industry is enjoying a lot of series A funding and other types of funding that would help support their innovations. We have a number of financial technology companies like Cellulant, Jumo, Paga, flutterwave and so many others, with many more still in the incubation stage waiting to come out.
