For banks and fintechs, the fight for talent and customers is just beginning

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Expansion across Africa: Opportunities and Challenges
The narrative surrounding these recent capital raises suggests that there is an opportunity to bring fintech-led services across Africa. This can be seen in some of the prominent investments mentioned above. For instance, when Stripe acquired the Nigerian fintech firm, Paystack, for a reported $200 million, its key goal was to expand into Africa. Similarly, Kuda Technologies’ recently concluded Series A round was led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, with the goal of providing digital-banking services to every African.

However, operating in multiple African countries is no easy feat for any business. And in financial services, the regulations vary and handling the foreign exchange implications adds a lot of complexity to operations.

There is no bank with coverage of all countries in Africa, but Ecobank (where I serve as Head of Consumer Payments) has the largest African network, with a presence in 35 African countries and a technology network connecting all its operations across the continent. In March 2021, Flutterwave announced its partnership with the bank, shortly before closing on the Series C round which confirmed its unicorn status. With more investors seeking to diversify, to avoid the risk of limiting themselves to individual countries and capture the opportunity across the continent, fintech partnerships like this (i.e., with financial institutions that have developed broad korea whatsapp number data coverage networks across countries) should increase and hopefully benefit all parties involved.



For banks, which have traditionally been the go-to providers of financial services, this ongoing revolution has several implications for talent, relevance and partnership opportunities.

Banks are huge, complex organizations sitting on large cash deposits, and they operate in a very regulated industry. As a result, they tend to be more risk-averse than innovative and agile about problem-solving. That would appear to be at odds with the mindset pervading fintech firms, where quickly creating products that resolve challenges for customers is the key value driver. However, some of these investor-backed startups need experienced people who have real-life work experience in the financial services industry, and they can afford to woo high-performing bankers with guaranteed pay and attractive stock options. Who doesn’t want to be a millionaire?