Exploring the rich possibilities within Africa’s fintech ecosystem, The Fintech Times delves into Visa‘s inaugural fintech accelerator, dedicated to nurturing the evolving fintech sector in Africa.
Though Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing fintech markets, it’s also one with a lot of unrealised growth potential. Around 350 million of the continent’s 1.47 billion people lack access to financial services, while Sub-Saharan Africa alone is home to approximately 500 million without proof of legal identity.
Though the startup scene is growing at an exceptional rate, tripling between 2020 and 2021 to around 5,200 companies, the continent is often overlooked by multinationals and investors who prioritise investments in more established economies. While the growth prospects are compelling, there is still plenty of work to be done.
To kick off a special video series, Otto Williams, head of partnerships, products and solutions for Visa in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, chatted to Polly Jean Harrison, features editor at The Fintech Times to discuss the African fintech scene and how Visa’s new accelerator programme will level up the ecosystem and uplift the digital economy across the continent.
Accelerating Africa’s fintech scene
The Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator is a 12-week virtual programme created to support fintech startups across the continent, providing them with the resources they need to grow and make significant impact on the African digital economy.
Featuring a cohort of 23 startups, shortlisted from 1000 applications, the members come from across sub-sectors including merchant payment solutions, lending infrastructure, banking-as-a-service, neo banking, buy now, pay later, and B2B marketplaces.
Each startup get personalised mentoring from industry professionals as well as valuable content from a variety of players across the ecosystem. Once the programme is complete, Visa will further support the growth of these fintechs through capital investment in select businesses and accelerate their commercial launch through access to Visa technology and capabilities – as well as the opportunity for investment review by Visa and Visa partner Plug and Play.
Commenting on the accelerator, Williams said: “One stat that we’re really excited by, is that 41 per cent of these startups have at least one woman on their founding team, and that’s really impressive. So, our first cohort does not just have sector diversity, but we have representation from nine countries covering all Africa sub regions from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana.
“With the gender diversity that we’re very proud of, once the programme is complete we aim to enable these startups to accelerate their commercial launch.”
The wider landscape
When it comes to Africa as an economy, cash is still king and used in around 90 per cent of transactions. This gives fintech companies the potential to really take hold, however the development of the fintech ecosystem is still in the early stages with plenty of room for expansion.
“We do have really significant opportunities for digital financial inclusion and for driving cashless across the continent,” explained Williams. “That is exactly where we see these fintechs play and the revenue opportunity is still pretty significant across the continent for fintech to capture the financial services market – predicted to grow 10 per cent per year reaching $230billion in revenues by 2025.”
He added: “We found that the fintech community across the continent is really leading the charge for payments innovation and connecting unbanked populations with the digital economy. Visa is all-in in supporting fintechs to actually achieve these objectives and drive digital financial inclusion across Africa.”
Watch Polly chat to Otto to learn more about the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator.
Polly Jean Harrison
