However, industry analysts indicate that despite the positive outlook, risk literacy remains a persistent challenge.

According to risk management experts, EIRS, this represents a gap that may be holding back the very financial inclusion that promises to uplift these important engines of job creation and innovation across Africa and the Middle East.

SMEs constitute an overwhelming majority of firms in the Middle East and North Africa, about 96% of registered companies and roughly half of employment, yet they receive just 7% of total bank lending, among the lowest globally.

In sub-Saharan Africa, SMEs often find themselves starved of capital, with many reporting limited access to loans or credit lines and enduring high borrowing costs that dwarf those in more developed markets.

Digital finance growth

The digital finance revolution, powered by mobile money, e-lending, and embedded financial services, has unlocked new avenues for inclusion. Digital solutions tailored for SMEs are growing rapidly, with fintech adoption rising across the region with digital platforms designed for business invoicing recording positive uptake in 2024. However, access is only part of the puzzle.

“What we’re seeing is that SMEs can reach digital finance solutions, but many still can’t use them effectively. Risk literacy, understanding credit, insurance, cash-flow dynamics and digital finance mechanisms, is the missing bridge between access and sustainable growth,” noted Abhishek Jain, chief executive officer, EIRS.

This gap has real business impact. While digital payment adoption in some markets is high, for example, 91% of Kenyan SMEs now use digital payments, many still lack the financial and risk acumen to leverage that access into credit worthiness, scalable lending, or meaningful insurance coverage.

Risk literacy is key

Across the region, the potential of SMEs remains high but despite their significant contribution to employment in Africa, they still face a persistent financing deficit. Without risk comprehension, lenders often view these enterprises as high-risk or unbankable.

Even in markets where mobile fintech adoption is strong, understanding remains uneven. Financial literacy enhances adoption with research showing that numerically and digitally literate SME owners are substantially more likely to adopt mobile banking, which in turn, improves their financial outcomes.

This dynamic illustrates why risk literacy, not just access, is the linchpin to inclusive finance.

Financial inclusion and risk literacy aren’t merely aspirational goals; they can concretely improve macroeconomic performance. Based on the IMF analysis, closing financial inclusion gaps could boost annual growth rates by up to 1% over the medium term in SME-dependent regions.

According to Abhishek, the conversation must shift from access to competence. “Policymakers, fintechs and financial institutions need to embed education into the SME onboarding process,” he noted. “When entrepreneurs comprehend risk, and can articulate it, lenders respond with capital, insurers design appropriate products, and ecosystems flourish.”

When risk literacy is elevated to strategic priority, SMEs may finally unlock their potential. And for the millions of entrepreneurs across the MEA region, understanding risk could be the key that turns inclusion into sustainable success.

The fifth edition of the African Financial Industry Barometer, produced by Deloitte and the Africa Financial Summit – AFIS, is based on a survey conducted between May and September 2025 among executives from more than 70 institutions (banks, insurance companies, fintechs, microfinance institutions, and capital market players) across the continent.

The findings are clear: the sector is returning to fundamentals and making profitability, cybersecurity, and operational efficiency the new pillars of its development model.

Confidence at an all-time high, boosted by disinflation

In 2025, executives rate their organization’s three-year economic outlook at 8/10, up 0.72 points from 2024, with 74% optimistic and only 4% pessimistic.

This renewed confidence is driven by easing inflation, improved operational visibility, and sustained commercial momentum.

Microfinance institutions show the highest level at of 9/10, ahead of insurance companies (8.35/10), while fintechs are normalising their expectations to 8.33/10 after peaking at 9.25/10 in 2024.

Pan-African groups report strong confidence (8.44/10), while international players (7.82/10) and capital market players (7.5/10) remain more cautious amid prolonged volatility.

A renewed focus on profitability and operational efficiency

In 2025, profitability emerged as a strategic priority for 46% of institutions surveyed, signaling a transition to maturity after several years of sustained expansion.

Three levers now dominate transformation plans: financial performance (84%), customer experience (85%), and digital transformation (81%), all up from 2024.

This strategic shift is reflected in improved fundamentals: net operating margin is up for 69% of players, return on equity (ROE) for 57%, and return on assets (ROA) for 58%, despite persistent pressure on asset quality and risk costs.

However, operational efficiency declined by 6 points to 54%, illustrating the growing complexity of cost control (talent, technology, compliance) in a more constrained environment.

Cybersecurity: from technical issue to systemic risk

58% of institutions report a high or very high level of exposure to strategic and regulatory risks. At the same time, 51% rank cybersecurity among their main concerns, compared to 39% in 2024.

In terms of regulatory priorities, cybersecurity tops the list of expectations for 97% of respondents, ahead of digital identification (92%) and combating illicit financial flows (87%, +18 points compared to 2024).

While 65–70% of institutions have fully operational prevention, detection, and response systems, the Barometer highlights a gap: investments have focused heavily on detection, but response and remediation capabilities remain limited. The shift from real-time identification to true resilience is the sector’s next challenge.

Digital and AI: from competitive advantage to business prerequisite

54% of institutions surveyed now consider themselves digitally mature, up 6 points from 2024. Fintechs remain at the forefront (67% in the “Leaders” category), but insurers have made the most significant progress: 59% are now in advanced positions (12% Leaders, 47% Potentials), up 19 points from 2024.

Artificial intelligence is primarily viewed as a risk management lever: 77% of institutions anticipate strong or transformative AI impact on fraud detection, 70% on credit risk analysis, and 70% on process optimisation.

Personalisation of offers (72%) and chatbots (68%) round out the leading use cases, combining operational efficiency with commercial expansion.

Continental integration: interoperability accelerates, PAPSS confirms its potential

PAPSS stands out as the most operational continental integration initiative: 35% of institutions rate it as highly operational (+15 points vs. 2024), citing measurable gains in cost reduction (25%) and faster settlement times (23%) for intra-African payments.

Payment system interoperability is identified as the top transformation priority by 2030 by 28% of respondents, driven by the ambition to connect 1.6 billion accounts (banking and mobile money combined).

Financial inclusion and ESG: from declarative logic to a pragmatic approach

Financial inclusion is a strategic pillar for 39% of institutions, led by microfinance institutions (100%) and fintechs (67%), while insurers are actively repositioning in underpenetrated segments through partnerships with telecom operators and microfinance institutions.

On ESG, the Barometer reveals a phase of pragmatic engagement: impact investing remains the most structured dimension (66% engagement), while ESG criteria integration has declined to 57% as institutions focus on areas with rapidly measurable impact.

Gender parity is advancing significantly: 47% of institutions have implemented team parity policies and 44% have dedicated reporting on gender indicators

“The African financial sector has entered a phase of maturity. Confidence is high, fundamentals are strengthening, and continental integration is becoming a reality. The remaining challenges cybersecurity, data quality and availability, interoperability, are those of an ecosystem being built, not defended. The ongoing consolidation is paving the way for stronger, more sustainable, and decidedly more inclusive growth,”Ambroise Depouilly, managing partner, Deloitte Francophone Africa.

“This Barometer highlights a very clear return to fundamentals in the African financial industry. Faced with a more constrained environment, executives are refocusing their priorities on financial performance and operational efficiency, which are once again becoming the sector’s true strategic compass,” Frédéric Maury, deputy CEO Event, Jeune Afrique Media Group.

The full 2025 Barometer is here.

According to a new report from Juniper Research, sighted by Techeconomy, the next chapter of connectivity will be defined not just by speed and coverage, but by intelligence, security, flexibility and new business models.

For Africa, where connectivity, inclusion and innovation are simultaneously opportunities and challenges, these ten trends represent a roadmap for what must come next.

1. AI Agents Will Redefine Customer Interaction at Scale

The report forecasts that telecom operators will increasingly deploy AI agents, not just chatbots, but intelligent systems integrated into CPaaS (Communications Platform-as-a-Service), CCaaS (Contact-Centre-as-a-Service) and CRM platforms, to execute multi-step tasks such as billing, upgrades, account management and even sales.

For African networks, this represents a chance to leap-frog manual-heavy customer care models into self-serving, cost-efficient digital experiences.

2. MVNOs & Travel eSIMs Converge to Serve the Global Roamer

The blending of MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) models with travel-eSIM services is cited as a major structural shift.

The combined model enables a single installation to serve both local and roaming users, aided by Connectivity-as-a-Service (CaaS) platforms.

In Africa’s case, where regional roaming, cross-border travel and international business are growing, local operators and fintech players can use this trend to diversify revenue and reach.

3. RCS Business Messaging Becomes Major Battleground for Fraud

Rich Communication Services (RCS), the next-gen messaging platform, is projected to emerge as a key battleground for enterprise fraud prevention.

With deeper integration to enterprise systems, voice-verification, messaging and security converge.

Nigerian and African operators will need to upgrade beyond SMS and basic mobile apps to defend trust in enterprise communications.

4. New Partnerships between Digital Marketing Agencies & CPaaS Platforms

Juniper anticipates growing alliances between marketing agencies and CPaaS vendors, enabling dynamic communications, real-time customer engagement and outcome-based interaction models.

For African media-tech entrepreneurs, this is an opening: think locally-relevant campaigns, multi-channel engagement, and monetisation of telecom assets via brand partnerships.

5. Multi-Orbit Satellite Networks Lay the Groundwork for Next-Gen Connectivity

Connectivity beyond terrestrial networks is going mainstream. Multi-orbit satellite constellations (LEO, MEO, GEO) will allow flexible, global coverage built into telecoms strategies.

For Africa, this could mean better rural and underserved coverage, but also a rethink of infrastructure investment, operator strategy and satellite-terrestrial coexistence.

6. Messaging & Voice Verification Begin to Converge for Enterprise Security

Voice and messaging are merging into unified authentication and verification platforms, supporting enterprise services, digital ID and secure transactions.

In a continent with rising digital commerce and mobile finances, this trend is particularly relevant to building trust and reducing fraud.

7. Substantial Growth in MVNO Launches Across Various Industries

The MVNO model is not just for telcos anymore, brands, retailers, sports teams, charities and verticals will launch customised mobile offers. This expansion is enabled by ‘TaaS’ (Telecom-as-a-Service) frameworks.

African fintechs, telcos and startups should watch this closely, the barrier to entry for mobile services is lowering.

8. 6G Research Accelerates with Focus on Terahertz Spectrum Innovation

While commercial 6G is still some years away, 2026 will accelerate research, especially in the terahertz (THz) band (100 GHz to 3 THz).

For African regulators and operators, this signals the need to plan now: spectrum policy, licensing frameworks, infrastructure readiness and new-use case planning must begin earlier.

9. KYC APIs See Rapid Adoption Across Digital Services in 2026

Juniper flags KYC (Know Your Customer) APIs as one of the fastest-adopted technologies, given the rise of digital services, fintechs and regulatory demands.

For African ecosystems, this means embedding identity verification, compliance and digital onboarding into every mobile app and service.

10. Consumer eSIM Provisioning to Be Streamlined to Accommodate Market Shifts

Simplified consumer eSIM provisioning is set to reshape how users connect, swap operators and roam globally, all without physical SIM cards.

In Africa, where physical SIM logistics and roaming costs are high, this could drive major consumer benefit and operator disruption.

Why it Matters for Africa

Juniper Research pronounces it clearly: telecoms is moving “from infrastructure to intelligence”, meaning that owning fiber or spectrum isn’t enough. Success now depends on how operators use emerging technologies smarter, deliver richer customer experience, and build trust across every layer of connectivity.

Regarding telcos in Africa; regulators, startups and ecosystems, these trends offer both a challenge and a blueprint: act early, focus on technology-enabled value, and rethink traditional models.

What’s Next

For those in African telecoms and connectivity, whether operators, regulators, investors or innovators, this means:

• Prioritise AI-enabled customer systems and automation.
• Explore MVNO/eSIM business models tied to regional mobility and fintech.
• Invest in satellite-terrestrial convergence for inclusive coverage.
• Enhance services around identity, security and trust (KYC, voice-messaging, fraud).
• Begin roadmap planning for 6G/THz research, even while 5G expands.

As Africa’s digital economy evolves, the players who embrace these trends will not only connect more people, they’ll enable new services, new business models, and new value across the continent.

The future of telecom isn’t just about speed; it’s about smarter connectivity.

Beneath the surface, though, global payments remain slow, costly, and overly dependent on a single hub: New York.

The reason is correspondent banking, the plumbing of international finance built for a different era. Instead of funds moving directly from one country to another, a bank relies on an intermediary, often a U.S. bank in New York, to provide services on its behalf. That made sense when technology was limited and trust was scarcer.

Today, it has become a bottleneck.

Consider a business in Nairobi paying a supplier in Berlin. The transaction typically detours through a U.S. correspondent bank before reaching Germany.

That extra leg adds time, fees, and operational risk, even when neither party has any commercial tie to the United States beyond the prevalence of the dollar in trade.

If the same flight path were imposed on travel: Kenya to New York to Germany, we’d call it inefficient design.

Yet we accept similar friction for the world’s financial arteries. In most markets, I can send money to a friend instantly or summon an Uber to my door in minutes. Global payments should run at the speed of modern software.

It is important to be clear about why New York sits at the center: the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, deep U.S. capital markets, and the reliability of U.S. rule of law. Those are strategic assets.

Many readers rightly value the advantages they confer, from lower funding costs to unrivaled financial depth.

The objective, then, is not to “route around” New York or diminish U.S. influence. It is to upgrade the rails so that dollar settlement is more accessible, more resilient, and more competitive for the next generation of commerce.

Concentration has consequences. When payments depend on a handful of correspondent relationships, shocks in one jurisdiction can ripple worldwide, whether from sanctions, de-risking decisions, cybersecurity incidents, or compliance backlogs.

Small and midsize companies, especially in emerging markets, bear the brunt: fees that can climb into the high single digits or more, settlements that take days rather than seconds, and liquidity trapped by time-zone and banking-hours constraints. For them, payments inefficiency is not an inconvenience; it is a growth ceiling.

What would a modern system look like? It would minimize intermediaries, settle in real time, and rely on open, interoperable infrastructure that reduces single points of failure while preserving compliance and auditability. This is not about reinventing money; it is about improving the routes money takes.

One practical path is properly regulated, fully reserved dollar stablecoins. Stablecoins can move dollars across borders in near real time at low cost, with transparent records that simplify compliance and reconciliation. For a manufacturer in Lagos paying a supplier in Istanbul, that can mean seconds instead of days and basis points instead of percentage points.

Modernization would reinforce U.S. financial leadership rather than undermine it. If dollars move faster, cheaper, and with better compliance tooling than alternatives, international businesses will deepen, not reduce their dollar usage.

Allowing low-margin transmission to occur on efficient rails frees New York to focus on what it does best: price discovery, underwriting, risk management, asset management, and capital formation.

Real-time, auditable settlement reduces operational and counterparty risk and can even enhance sanctions efficacy by making flows more traceable.

Open rails paired with rigorous U.S. oversight keep American norms: rule of law, investor protection, and prudential supervision, at the center of global finance.

This is a competitive question as much as a technical one. The status quo leaves room for closed, proprietary networks and non-dollar systems to gain share where the correspondent model is most fragile.

If American policymakers and market leaders champion modern, interoperable dollar rails, they future-proof the dollar’s role and widen the moat around New York’s financial ecosystem.

Stablecoins are not the only modernization effort. Central banks are exploring digital currencies, and banks and fintechs are building faster cross-border corridors. The common thread is upgrading settlement to be real-time, programmable, and interoperable.

Among these, fully reserved, well-regulated dollar stablecoins are notable because they are market-ready today and compatible with existing compliance frameworks.

We have lived with detours for half a century. It is time to give global trade infrastructure that matches the pace of modern business, direct where it can be, fast when it must be, and open enough to be resilient. Do that, and the outcome is not less New York.

It is a stronger dollar, a more competitive U.S. financial system, and a global economy that moves at the speed of the world we actually live in.

*Chris Maurice is the CEO of Yellow Card, the largest licensed stablecoin payments company in Africa and emerging markets.

Comviva reported, processing over 7.5 billion transactions, with total value of transactions crossing USD 400 billion annually, a value surpassing the GDP of Finland.

According to the GSMA Mobile Money Report 2024, Comviva commands an impressive 24% share of the global mobile money market, reaffirming its position as one of the world’s most trusted and widely deployed digital financial platforms.

Built for the next era of digital payments, Comviva’s fintech platforms deliver AI-led, cloud-native digital payments experience – which is secure, scalable, and frictionless across a wide financial ecosystem.

The fintech capabilities of Comviva include Payment orchestration, tokenization, mobile wallets, QR codes, and USSD-based payments, which converge to deliver seamless and real-time transactions for individuals, businesses, and governments, from everyday retail payments to large-scale social and government disbursements.

Speaking on the milestone, Srinivas Nidugondi, EVP and chief operating officer, FinTech solutions at Comviva, said, 

“This achievement underscores Comviva’s unwavering commitment to enabling inclusive, intelligent, and secure financial experiences at scale. At Comviva, we are not just processing payments, we are driving economic growth, fostering financial inclusion, and helping transform how billions of people engage with digital finance globally.”

With 80+ deployments across more than 55+ countries, Comviva continues to redefine digital payments by ensuring agility, reliability, compliance, and rapid deployment in an ever-evolving digital economy.

Trusted by large digital merchants, E-commerce players, telecom operators, financial institutions, and FinTechs, Comviva is shaping the future of payments with AI-driven innovation and user-centric design.

Speaking during a high-level panel session at the event hosted by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mr. Atanda delivered an intervention on the structural gaps slowing SME growth in Nigeria and the urgent need for a coordinated national approach to digital enablement.

With the session focused on harnessing financial technology to unlock Africa’s development potential, Mr. Atanda made a case for national alignment in policy, technology, and infrastructure.

“The real conversation isn’t about how many platforms we have. It’s about whether Nigeria has a national strategy for SMEs in the digital age,” he stated. “Once that is defined, the role of regulators, fintechs, logistics players, and government becomes clearer and more impactful.”

He highlighted how fintech platforms are helping SMEs transcend traditional barriers. From enabling cross-border payments to improving digital visibility, technology has expanded opportunities for small businesses that previously operated in geographic isolation.

“A business in Aba can now serve a customer in Accra, because payment rails make it possible. That’s real change,” he noted.

Now in its 11th edition, ICTEL EXPO has become a flagship platform for dissecting Africa’s innovation landscape, and this year’s theme, “Leveraging Technology for Innovation and Development in Africa,” brought a fresh urgency to long-standing conversations.

As SMEs continue to contribute over 48% to Nigeria’s GDP and employ more than 80% of the workforce, stakeholders gathered to explore how digital infrastructure, fintech innovation, and regulatory reform can accelerate this segment’s transformation.

The 2025 event attracted hundreds of participants across sectors, reaffirming the role of technology as the engine of inclusive and sustainable economic development across the continent.

Mr. Atanda also cautioned that the progress made in digital innovation and financial inclusion cannot be sustained in a fragmented ecosystem.

While there have been notable advances, such as increased digital payments, tech-driven services, and broader access to financial tools, these gains risk being undermined by the lack of coordination among key institutions.

“We’re seeing duplication where we need direction. Innovation must be guided by a shared vision that links digital solutions to national economic goals,” Mr. Atanda warned.

He welcomed recent steps by the CBN, particularly the establishment of a dedicated Payment Supervision Department, as a positive move towards greater clarity in the fintech landscape.

This, he said, should be accompanied by collaborative policy development that integrates technology, finance, and trade.

Mr. Atanda further stressed the need to embed logistics into the SME growth equation.

“Technology can connect buyers and sellers instantly, but if a product takes a week to arrive or never does, we haven’t solved anything. A tech-driven logistics backbone is as vital as payment platforms.”

Touching on access to credit, he explained how integrated data systems can transform small businesses’ financial profiles.

“Today, many SMEs serve the same customers in isolation. Imagine if we could consolidate these transactions into one data layer, we’d reveal true business activity and unlock credit access at scale,” he said.

He also spotlighted open banking as a potential game-changer for SME financing, arguing that shared access to payment data, customer patterns, and transaction volumes can allow both banks and fintechs to lend more confidently and competitively to small businesses.

To close, Mr. Atanda urged all stakeholders: government, private sector, regulators, and development partners, to convert conversations into measurable progress.

“If by the next conference we cannot point to at least one major milestone from these discussions, then we would have failed the SMEs that we claim to serve. The future demands more than talking; it requires alignment, execution, and sustained accountability,” he added.

Mr. Atanda’s contribution served as both a challenge and a roadmap: that the success of Nigeria’s digital economy lies not in isolated innovation but in collective intent.

His call reinforced a central truth: that the potential of Nigeria’s SMEs can only be fully realised when technology, regulation, and national interest move in deliberate coordination.

Beyond the participation in the panel discussion, Remita also featured prominently as an exhibitor, demonstrating its strength as a full-stack financial ecosystem that powers growth and operational excellence for organizations of all sizes.

Its showcase carried a clear message of ‘empowering business growth one payment at a time’, while extending an open invitation to businesses seeking to take charge of their payments and collections.

The exhibition reflected Remiita’s role as the bridge between technology and tangible business outcomes, reinforcing its reputation as a strategic partner for SMEs, corporates, banks, and fintechs seeking scalable financial infrastructure and transformative growth within Nigeria’s evolving digital economy.

Through Riby’s proprietary products and large-scale public- and private-sector partnerships, Salami has supported the onboarding of millions of individuals and families into formal financial systems, working with institutions such as the Bank of Industry (BOI), Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Sterling Bank, Mercy Corp, state governments, and international development organisations like the International Labour Organization (ILO). His approach prioritises transparency, governance, and long-term infrastructure over short-term consumer growth.

In this interview, Salami shares his perspective on financial inclusion in Africa, the role fintechs must play beyond consumer banking, and why cooperative finance offers critical lessons for innovators seeking sustainable impact. Excerpts.

Financial inclusion has become a recurring theme in Africa’s fintech narrative. From your perspective, what does true financial inclusion really mean?

Abolore Salami: True financial inclusion goes far beyond opening accounts or onboarding users onto apps. Inclusion means relevance, usability, and continuity. People must be able to use financial services consistently, confidently, and in ways that align with how they already live and earn.

If a product is technically accessible but culturally misaligned or operationally fragile, it is not inclusive.

In Africa, inclusion also means resilience. Many people experience income volatility, communal financial obligations, and limited safety nets. Financial products must reflect those realities.

Inclusion is achieved when people can save, borrow, and invest in a way that strengthens their financial lives over time, not just when they can download an app. That distinction is often lost in conversations that focus only on access and scale.

Despite the growth of fintechs across the continent, millions of Africans remain unbanked or underbanked. Why has inclusion been so difficult to achieve?

Salami: One major reason is that many fintech solutions are built with assumptions imported from other markets. Products are designed for individuals with predictable income, high digital literacy/access, and formal employment. That excludes a large segment of Africans by default.

Another issue is trust. Financial inclusion is not just a technical problem; it is a social one. People are cautious about new financial systems, especially when previous experiences with institutions have been disappointing.

Finally, there is the challenge of sustainability. Some fintechs prioritise growth metrics over long-term value, which leads to products that struggle once funding tightens.

Inclusion requires patience, local understanding, and systems designed to endure, not just scale quickly.

What role should fintech companies realistically play in closing Africa’s financial inclusion gap?

Salami: Fintechs should see themselves as infrastructure builders, not just product creators. Their role is to reduce friction, improve transparency, and lower the cost of delivering financial services. But they cannot replace social structures that already exist.

The most effective fintechs complement existing financial behaviour rather than trying to overwrite it. That means partnering with communities, institutions, and informal systems that people already trust. Cooperative and Agency Banking models deeply respect and recognize this trust.

Fintechs also need to accept their limits. Technology can enable inclusion, but it cannot force adoption or trust. Those are earned over time through reliability, clarity, and respect for local realities.

Many fintech products focus on individuals. Why do you believe group-based and community finance models are critical to inclusion in Africa?

Salami: Because finance in Africa is often communal. People save, lend, and invest collectively through cooperatives, associations, and informal groups. These systems work because they are rooted in social accountability and shared goals. Family-level banking is also something we are looking into deeply, treating families as a group/unit.

Individual-focused fintechs often struggle to replicate that trust digitally. Group-based models already solve many behavioural challenges such as discipline, repayment, and long-term commitment. Ignoring them means ignoring how millions of people already manage money.

If fintechs want to drive inclusion, they must understand and support these collective and household systems rather than viewing them as outdated or informal.

Cooperatives and informal financial groups have existed for decades. Why do you think they’ve been largely overlooked by modern fintechs?

Salami: Partly because they appear complex. Cooperatives involve governance, shared decision-making, and internal rules that don’t fit neatly into simple app logic. Many fintechs prefer straightforward individual products because they’re easier to design and scale, which is understandable and has its merits.

There’s also a perception issue. Informal systems are sometimes viewed as unsophisticated, even though they manage significant volumes of money.

In reality, cooperatives are highly structured social institutions. What they lack is modern digital infrastructure. Overlooking them is not just a missed opportunity, but a misunderstanding of where trust and financial activity already exist.

In more advanced markets, you find cooperatives and credit-unions already delivering huge amounts of value in billions of dollars yearly to their members, an example being the Navy Federal Credit Union in the United States with over 12 millions members and very advanced digital banking solutions comparable to any commercial bank.

Drawing from your experience across consulting, power technology, and financial services, what did you learn about how Africans actually organise money?

Salami: I learned that financial behaviour is deeply contextual. People organise money around relationships, obligations, and long-term goals, not just convenience.

In consulting and power technology, I saw how infrastructure must adapt to real-world conditions—unreliable networks, regulatory complexity, and diverse users. These experiences reinforced the idea that technology must serve behaviour, not the other way around.

Financial products succeed when they fit into existing economic and social patterns. That understanding shaped my approach to fintech and ultimately influenced how I thought about inclusion and scale.

How did these insights influence your decision to build Riby as a platform focused on cooperatives and group-based finance?

Salami: Riby was born from the recognition that cooperatives already do much of what fintechs aim to achieve, mobilising savings, providing credit, and enforcing discipline, but lack digital tools. Instead of reinventing finance, we chose to start there, digitise what already works and advance from the base.

The platform was designed to support transparency, governance, and accountability within groups. That focus allowed us to penetrate a segment many fintechs ignored, not because it was niche, but because it was misunderstood.

Riby is a response to structural realities, not a trend-driven product. Groups, communities and families are important user categories beyond just individual users and we deeply apply  this thinking to our approach to new product development and our global growth plans.

What were the key challenges in digitising cooperative finance, particularly around trust and adoption?

Salami: Trust was central. Cooperatives are cautious because they manage collective funds. Any digital solution must enhance transparency, not obscure it. We had to ensure that records were clear, auditable, and accessible to members.

Adoption also required patience. Digitisation is a behavioural shift, not just a technical one. Grass root agent networks were critical and we onboarded thousands of agents across over 20 states.

Training, education, and gradual onboarding were essential. We learned that technology must adapt to users’ pace, not force change abruptly.

That approach helped build confidence and long-term usage. Strong partnerships with banks and development finance institutions (DFIs) were also vital in our development.

How can fintechs balance innovation, regulation, and sustainability while serving underserved communities?

Salami: By treating regulation as part of the design process, not an obstacle. Financial services demand trust, and regulation exists to protect that trust. Sustainable fintechs embed compliance into their architecture from the beginning.

Innovation should focus on simplifying complexity for users, not bypassing safeguards. When fintechs align innovation with regulatory intent and long-term value creation, sustainability follows naturally.

Cutting corners may accelerate short-term growth, but it undermines credibility over time.

Looking ahead, what must change for Africa’s fintech ecosystem to deliver lasting inclusion rather than short-lived success?

Salami: The ecosystem needs to shift from growth-first thinking to impact-first thinking. Scale matters, but durability matters more. Fintechs must build products that can survive economic cycles, not just funding cycles.

There also needs to be greater respect for indigenous financial systems.

Cooperatives, associations, and community finance are not relics; they are assets. The future of inclusion lies in blending technology with these systems thoughtfully. If fintechs embrace that mindset, Africa’s financial inclusion story will be far more enduring.

However, their ability to innovate has often been constrained by legacy systems and regulatory pressures.

In recent years, the rise of fintech has disrupted this status quo, delivering financial services in a tech-driven manner.

This shift has not only challenged the traditional banking sector but has also led to collaboration between banks and fintech companies, leading to the convergence of the two.

The convergence of banking and fintech represents a pivotal moment in Nigeria’s financial evolution.

As mobile payments, digital lending platforms, and blockchain-based solutions gain traction, the line between what defines a bank and a fintech company has started to blur.

The result of these blurring lines means more efficient delivery of financial services for people. Before this convergence, financial services only pandered to a select few people.

According to Inside the business of card payments in Nigeria, “a major problem the earliest financial institutions faced was that they were elitist in their operations, and did little to cater to the banking needs of the masses.”

In contrast, fintech companies rose to prominence by focusing on ease of use, speed, and inclusivity.

These companies have transformed how payments are made, how loans are accessed, and how everyday banking is conducted, often reaching demographics that traditional banks have found difficult to serve. By leveraging mobile technology and cloud-based platforms, fintechs offer services that are faster, cheaper, and more tailored to the individual needs of customers.

It is important to also note that the fintechs were only able to do this because traditional banks provided the foundation for it. From commissioning the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) to the creation of NIP, fintechs had something to work with.

So if fintechs and traditional banks are so different what is driving convergence now?

The convergence between fintechs and traditional banks is necessitated by the need for further growth in Nigeria’s payment industry. After the rapid growth of the fintech industry, the remaining room for development requires the joint effort of fintechs and traditional banks.

We are witnessing this convergence in different areas. One area of convergence is in payment infrastructure. Nigerian fintechs excel at creating fast, user-friendly digital payment solutions, but they often rely on established banking networks to facilitate these transactions.

Traditional banks, on the other hand, lack the speed and agility that fintechs bring to payments, leading them to partner with these innovators to offer services like instant transfers and mobile payments.

Platforms like Flutterwave, Paystack, and Interswitch have worked closely with banks to ensure that payments can be processed efficiently and at scale.

By integrating fintech APIs with banking systems, customers can now enjoy seamless transactions across different platforms, showing how neither side can dominate the payment space alone.

Lending is another sector where fintechs and banks are increasingly converging. Nigerian fintechs have pioneered quick, digital loan services, using alternative credit scoring models and automated platforms to reach the unbanked and underbanked.

However, the scale and stability needed to expand these offerings require access to the capital and regulatory structure that banks have.

This has led to partnerships between fintech lenders and traditional banks, where fintechs provide the front-end user experience and data-driven loan assessments, while banks offer funding and back-end support.

For instance, some banks have launched digital lending products that mimic fintech services but rely on fintech technology to drive the process, blending their resources for mutual benefit.

However, there’s a new kind of convergence between fintechs and traditional banks, one that is occurring on the blockchain.

This convergence is facilitated by Zone, touted as Africa’s fastest-growing payment infrastructure company, to usher in the next phase of financial service development in Nigeria.

This convergence brings traditional banks and fintechs together on Zone’s regulated blockchain network to form a robust payment infrastructure.

This payment infrastructure ensures the direct routing of transactions between them, facilitating transparency and eliminating errors.

According to industry stakeholders this innovation by Zone is not just another indication of increasing partnerships between fintechs and banks it could redefine the convergence of financial institutions as we know it and subsequently birth a new form of collaboration.

This recognition underscores Flutterwave’s unwavering commitment to excellence, innovation, and facilitating seamless cross-border payments for all individuals and businesses.

The IPR Awards celebrates the outstanding achievements of the most innovative companies in the global money transfer sector, such as Money Transfer Operators, Banks, Fintechs, and Telcos.

The awards are in alignment with the IPR’s efforts since 2018 to foster collaboration between payments and remittance professionals, exchange best practices, and drive positive change within the industry.

Naming Flutterwave, “Company of the Year”, IPR recognizes the Company’s ongoing commitment to serving enterprise businesses with its Flutterwave for Business suite of products and retail customers through Send App by Flutterwave, its innovative cross-border remittance solution.

This award recognises Flutterwave’s forward-thinking innovations, which have enabled individuals and businesses across Africa and beyond to access simple remittance services providing millions of Africans in the diaspora with seamless cross-border transactions.

Yewande Akomolafe-Kalu, Interim head of Marketing at Flutterwave commented,

“We’re excited to be named IPR’s “Company of the Year.” This award is especially important to us because it recognizes our innovations in the payment ecosystem and the role they play in transforming cross-border transactions. With a strong focus on connecting Africa to the world and the world to Africa with seamless payment solutions, we’ve continued our continental leadership as an ecosystem enabler and an innovation trendsetter.”

Flutterwave was named Fast Company’s Most Innovative Company for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in 2024.

The Company recently appointed a new Chief Financial Officer, Mitesh Popat, to drive its next phase of growth to create sustainable value for its customers and broader payment ecosystem in Africa.

Zone is a decentralized network of Banks and Fintechs powered by blockchain and focused on enabling domestic and cross-border payments.

Following the success of its ATM transaction processing service, the roll-out of its PoS payment gateway  further fulfils the company’s promise of delivering reliable, frictionless and universally interoperable payments across multiple payment channels.

The introduction of Zone’s PoS Payment Gateway product brings a comprehensive payment processing solution to Banks and Fintechs that deploy PoS payment terminals.

The product promises transaction reliability through direct routing of transactions to issuers, same-day settlement for beneficiaries and their financial institutions, and a robust framework eliminating chargebacks and chargeback fraud.

Key to note here is that Zone (as a CBN-licensed payment switch) is able to implement direct transaction routing to issuers without violating regulatory guidelines on inter-bank payments.

At the core of Zone’s PoS Payment Gateway is its regulated layer-1 blockchain network, which guarantees the security, reliability and transparency of every transaction.

Zone’s superior architecture endows the PoS payment gateway with several key features:

• Direct Card Routing: Zone connects acquirers directly to issuers through its decentralised payment switching network. This architecture optimises the PoS transaction route, and eliminates failure points thereby guaranteeing increased speed and reliability of each transaction for the benefit of merchants, agents and cardholders alike.
• No Chargebacks: Zone’s advanced PoS payment gateway eliminates chargebacks and chargeback fraud on PoS terminals by auto-refunding customers for unsuccessful transactions and auto-declining fraudulent chargebacks in real-time — thereby building a foundation of trust and satisfaction among all parties involved.
• Same-Day Settlements: Settlement of payments from PoS terminals using Zone is effected on the same day and separately for each transaction, ensuring faster availability of funds for both agents and merchants alike, and making it easy to determine when value has been received for every transaction.

“Today marks a pivotal moment not just for us at Zone, but also for the Financial Institutions we enable, and the esteemed customers they serve,” said Obi Emetarom, CEO and co-founder of Zone. “Our PoS Payment Gateway Product is a commitment to financial inclusion and to the digital future of all payments in Africa. With this new offering, we are excited to have taken yet another major step towards our vision for a world where individuals and businesses can make and receive instant payments to and from anyone in the world, through any payment method and in any currency.”

Zone’s PoS Payment Gateway emerges as a distinct solution that sets a new standard in the industry. While a few leading fintechs have made some strides towards improving the quality of service specifically for their own PoS terminals, Zone’s offering goes a step further by making such improvements and related advanced features, accessible to all financial service providers in the industry.

This democratization of cutting-edge technology ensures that all institutions utilising Zone’s product for PoS-based transaction processing can now enjoy superior levels of transaction reliability, and operational efficiency while delivering delightful payment experiences to their own customers each and every time.