Addressing Challenges in African Wealth Tech

After reviewing more pitch decks these past few days, I see African fintech founders are still flogging the dead horse that is "banking the unbanked" as a lazy fundraising pitch. From Yaounde to Cape Town, it’s the same story, another mobile wallet, payments app, another promise to bring financial inclusion to the masses. Truth is: most Africans are not unbanked because they lack access; they’re unbanked because they lack income. A new app won’t change that. The Brutal Truth Lack of Disposable Income – People don’t need more fintech solutions; they need more money. Without increased economic productivity, most “financial inclusion” solutions remain useless. Broken Unit Economics – Many fintechs rely on unsustainable VC fueled growth, acquiring “users” who don’t generate revenue. Regulatory Capture & Infrastructure Gaps – Governments protect banks and telcos dominate mobile money. The real bottlenecks are systemic, not just about "access." Startups often underestimate how slow, expensive, and political it is to scale across markets. Real Problems & Better Solutions Income-Generating Fintech – Instead of just moving money, fintech should help people make money. Platforms enabling gig work, SME financing, and export-focused businesses can drive real financial inclusion. A fintech that helps informal traders access larger markets, rather than just helping them "save." Decentralized Credit & Alternative Lending – Traditional credit models don’t work in Africa. Instead: Use supply chain data, mobile behavior, and transaction flows to build more dynamic credit models. Integrate fintech into cooperative lending structures like tontines or village savings groups, where trust already exists. B2B Payments & Trade Infrastructure – Cross-border trade needs work, killing SME growth. Fix it: Build better escrow and invoice financing tools that help African businesses transact across borders securely. Verticalized Fintech in High-Impact Sectors – Fintech should power real economic activity, not just payments. Agritech fintech: Give farmers access to dynamic pricing, supply chain finance, and better insurance. Healthcare fintech: Enable embedded payments and credit for medical services, helping people afford care without predatory loans. Logistics fintech: Provide financing for truckers, warehousing solutions, and real-time supply chain support. Infrastructure-First Fintech – If power, internet, & ID verification are problems, solve those first. Payments without stable connectivity? Build USSD-based financial services. Weak credit infrastructure? Build platforms that help lenders pool risk and share credit data across borders. The era of cheap fundraising gimmicks is over. African fintech must shift from vanity metrics to real impact, solving income generation, trade inefficiencies, and credit access at scale. I'm tired of saying this, founders who build with these in mind won’t need to beg for funding; investors will come looking for them.

I had a chat with a VC earlier today, and also just stumbled on a post on LinkedIn which made me further ponder the realities of building in Africa. Most of the problems we solve in Africa are Wicked Problems.  Wicked problems are problems that are complex, multifaceted and deeply entangled in culture, macroeconomics and politics. These wicked problems are largely sustained by powerful informal structures (middlemen, cartels, cabals) who have vested interests. On the other side, you have eager founders with a pitch deck and VC money looking to disrupt the market through Platformization and Uberization - I am sure you get the point here. The problem is that Tech is a tool, an enabler, a pillar for scale, efficiency and productivity, but by itself it cannot tackle wicked problems, and this is where tech alone falls short. Also, the VC money expects scale and margin within a short runway without getting involved in the messiness of the hard and wicked problem. So you hear things like Asset-light, SAAS like models, Linear solutions, etc  But the actual frictions in the wicked problems are not just inefficiencies, they are livelihoods. That middleman or cartel isn’t a bug in the system, they are the SYSTEM. Tech can automate a function, but not the social trust that drives informal economies. Tech can map a process, but not the deep narrative of power and survival embedded in that process. So the new problem becomes this: you’re trying to disrupt someone’s business model that is based on disorder, and you want to do it with order and logic.  I will argue that in most African markets, the only way to build real value is to own or control some part of the assets within the ecosystem of the problem you are solving for. Success in most cases means blending tech, boots on the ground ops, and deep informal engagement (you won't see this on the pitch decks). My take is that, as founders building in Africa, we have to approach the journey like soldiers going to a war. The problems we are solving aren't just complex but entrenched in systems where the disorder is the business model. To win in Africa, you need to build with the cartels, not against them. Understand the gatekeepers. Respect the networks. Navigate the informality. The real disruption comes from working within the mess, not pretending it doesn’t exist.

💬 Africa’s biggest fintech breakthroughs start where most systems fail: at the fault line. The playbook for real progress isn’t about adding features or chasing the latest trend—it’s about finding what breaks the system, and solving there first. That’s inversion thinking in action. In Africa’s fintech infrastructure, it means stripping the stack down to its core, identifying the weak links, and fixing those before anything else. Here’s how inversion thinking changes the map: ↳Start with digital identity, not payments. ↳ Invest in the rails, not just the apps. ↳ Make regulators part of the product, not an afterthought. ↳ Design for cross-border scale, not city-first launches. ↳ Translate informal market signals, don’t ignore them. ↳ Build native solutions, not global copy-paste. Africa’s fintech future will be shaped by those who solve at the fault lines—not by adding more layers, but by addressing the breakpoints that stall the whole market. If you could fix one failure point in the system, what would it be? Drop your answer below, or DM if you want to rethink your strategy from the foundation up.

TymeBank (South Africa) and Moniepoint (Nigeria) have achieved unicorn status with valuations of $1.5 billion and over $1 billion, respectively, by blending digital banking with physical touchpoints. This hybrid model caters to Africa’s 90% cash-based economy and unbanked populations, overcoming barriers like unreliable internet and low trust in online-only systems. Together, these fintechs now serve over 25 million users, redefining what scaling financial inclusion looks like in emerging markets. SO WHAT TymeBank's partnership with supermarkets like Pick n Pay has enabled the deployment of over 1,000 kiosks and 15,000 retail points across South Africa, allowing it to grow to 15 million users. Moniepoint’s 200,000 agents, acting as human ATMs, bridge the gap in Nigeria, where only 16 ATMs per 100,000 adults exist, supporting over 10 million users. Both companies are expanding into Asia and broader African markets, leveraging $360 million in recent funding rounds to replicate their models. A digital-only strategy, like that pursued by Kuda (valued at $500 million), may be more scalable in regions with higher internet penetration and digital trust. However, it risks limiting market reach in areas where 43% or fewer have reliable connectivity. Think about it this way: the hybrid model embraces complexity to unlock growth in underserved regions. Could a hybrid approach redefine banking for other industries or regions, or is this model uniquely suited to Africa’s fintech challenges? What’s your take on scaling such a model sustainably? #fintech

One of the most expensive mistakes a founder or investor can make is treating Africa as one big single market. It is not! While there are markets considered to be the continent's digital hubs, digital finance hubs, which is exciting, their regulatory DNA is fundamentally different. You may have a perfect product, but applying a "Kenyan strategy" to the Nigerian market isn't just difficult, it’s a recipe for significant compliance friction, capital inefficiency, and ultimately, failure. One example which comes to mind is how MPESA has done so well in Kenya but not so much following its launch in Ethiopia in 2023. Another is how MTN's MoMO has done well in some markets and not so well, if not failing, in others. These markets are different. This includes the way they are also regulated. I’ve briefly mapped out the regulatory logic of Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, and Nigeria in the image below to show how these differences impact your product launch or expansion. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻: 𝗞𝗲𝗻𝘆𝗮: Pragmatic and inclusion-led. Great for scale, but conduct scrutiny is tightening. 𝗥𝘄𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮: The ultimate testbed. Modular licensing makes it the perfect regional proof-of-concept. 𝗚𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗮: Highly structured digital rails. Interoperability is the name of the game here. 𝗡𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮: High-stakes, capital-heavy. Massive upside, but you need a "stability-first" compliance mindset. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗲: Different markets, different regulations. Stop treating these regulations as hurdles. They are not. They are a blueprint for your product design and valuation. Whether you are navigating PSP tiers or sandbox entries, the "copy-paste" regional expansion model will not work (well, only until license passporting starts working, like the Kenya -Rwanda-Ghana passporting frameworks). So what does success in the "African fintech market" require?....A localized regulatory strategy for every border you cross. Found this helpful? 🔔 Follow me for more insights on fintech strategy and African market entry. 🔄 Repost to help a founder or investor in your network avoid a market entry and compliance headache.