Africa’s fintech firms vie for domination
As investment pours in, they are expanding across the continent and into new services
THE PAYMENTS frenzy is going global, and Africa is catching the bug. So far this year four of the continent’s financial-technology firms have reached or exceeded billion-dollar valuations, more than doubling Africa’s population of “unicorns”. OPay, a mobile-payments company, acquired its horn in August, after raising funding from investors including SoftBank, a Japanese firm. Other recent unicorns include Wave, a Senegal-based startup that runs a mobile-money network; Chipper Cash, which offers peer-to-peer payments; and Flutterwave, which simplifies payments for businesses. As foreign investment pours in, Africa’s fintech firms are expanding both across the continent and into new services.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Turf wars”
Finance & economics November 6th 2021
From the November 6th 2021 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Finance & economics
The Los Angeles fires will be extraordinarily expensive
They will also expose California’s faulty insurance market
Europe could be torn apart by new divisions
The continent is at its most vulnerable in decades
How corporate bonds fell out of fashion
The market is at its hottest in years—and a shadow of its former self
An American purchase of Greenland could be the deal of the century
The economics of buying new territory
China’s markets take a fresh beating
Authorities have responded by bossing around investors
Can America’s economy cope with mass deportations?
Production slowdowns, more imports and pricier housing could follow