E-Financial
Sub- Saharan Africa is the Fastest Growth Frontier for Fintech Firms – GSMA
Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the fastest-growing investment zones for financial technology companies, according the trade body that represents the interests of global mobile network operators.
The GSM Association (GSMA) says in its Mobile Economy, Sub-Saharan Africa 2019 report that the region will remain the fastest growing worldwide.
Predicting a total subscriber base of over 600 million by 2025, which represents approximately half the population, Sub-Saharan Africa will become a flagship for mobile disruption.
According to Mike Smits, co-founder of the uKheshe micro transaction platform, the unbanked are one of the driving forces behind this growth.
“Mastercard reports that while around 1.2 billion adults opened bank accounts for the first time over the past decade, 1.7 billion remain outside the formal banking sector worldwide,” Smits says.
“Our challenge, as a continent, is to reach these ‘unbanked’ individuals and better understand, as financial service providers, why they opt to stay in the informal sector.”
Smits says since the launch of uKheshe 10 months ago, the plight for financial inclusion has become glaringly obvious. “While progress has been made in terms of mobile money, it’s become imperative that we move beyond that and look into digital payment solutions.
“What we have realised is that financial inclusion is not just about technology disruption, but more about solving greater economic problems.”
He says consumers need simpler, more cost-effective ways to do simple tasks, such as sending or receiving money and buying airtime.
Mobile operators on the continent have over the past few years been entrenching themselves in the financial services sector to cover the unbanked and make transactions simpler.
Last week, MTN Group announced its fintech transactions reached R666 billion ($44 billion) in the six months to June.
The JSE-listed telco says its fintech strategy is starting to pay off, reporting a 30.7% hike – customer growth went up 8.9% to 30 million, while active Mobile Money (MoMo) users and average revenue per user is pegged at R19.60 ($1.30).
The total value of fintech transactions in the first half of the year to June reached a peak of $44 billion and the company processed 9 193 transactions per minute.
The mobile operator has been actively pushing to be a dominant force in the financial services space on the continent.
M-Pesa in Kenya remains the mobile money business case study of payment innovation in emerging markets. It was launched 12 years ago.
In Southern Africa, EcoCash is a success story in Zimbabwe. It is a mobile payment platform hosted by local telco Econet. EcoCash is an offshoot of Cassava Smartech, an entity that offers more financial services than mobile money, including remittances, digital banking and all kinds of insurance.
The GSMA report adds that in 2018, mobile technologies and services generated 4.6% of GDP globally, a contribution that amounted to $3.9 trillion of economic value added.
“The mobile ecosystem also supported almost 32 million jobs (directly and indirectly) and made a substantial contribution to the funding of the public sector, with more than $500 billion raised through general taxation”
According to the GSMA report, by 2023, mobile’s contribution is forecast to reach $4.8 trillion (4.8% of GDP) as countries around the globe increasingly benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by increased take-up of mobile services.
Further ahead, the report says 5G technologies are expected to contribute $2.2 trillion to the global economy over the next 15 years, with key sectors such as manufacturing, utilities and professional/financial services benefiting the most from the new technology.
At the end of 2018, 3.6 billion people were connected to the mobile Internet, the report says, representing an increase of just over 300 million compared to the previous year. However, more than four billion people remain offline.
Further, it says around a billion of these are not covered by mobile broadband networks (the ‘coverage gap’), while around three billion live within the footprint of a network but are not accessing mobile Internet services (the ‘usage gap’).
“Over the next few years, as the enablers of mobile Internet adoption (infrastructure, affordability, consumer readiness and content/services) continue to improve, millions of people will start using the mobile Internet for the first time. By 2025, five billion people across the globe (more than 60% of the population) will use the mobile Internet,” reads the report.
Federal court in Lagos has suspended the enforcement of Nigeria’s most comprehensive framework for regulating digital lending apps.
On April 15, Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa of the Federal High Court in Lagos granted an interim injunction blocking the enforcement of the Digital, Electronic, Online, or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending Regulations 2025, better known as the DEON Regulations.
The order followed an urgent ex parte application filed the previous day by the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Nigeria (WASPA Nigeria), the industry body representing wireless application service providers operating mainly within the telecoms ecosystem.
The suit targets twelve specific provisions of the text, covering licensing, sanctions, compliance obligations and data-handling rules, according to court documentation published by Lawyard.
Until the next hearing on April 27, 2026, the regulator cannot impose sanctions, enforce compliance directives, or issue new instructions to WASPA members.
The judge also barred the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) from interfering with the ongoing commercial operations of association members.
The case pits two actors whose respective mandates the Nigerian legal framework has never clearly separated.
On one side stands the FCCPC — the federal agency established in 2018 to enforce consumer protection and competition — which gazetted the DEON Regulations on July 21, 2025, under sections 17, 18 and 163 of its founding Act.
In a press statement dated September 3, 2025, Tunji Bello, executive vice chairman, FCCPC, justified the rules by citing “a long history of complaints” involving exploitative practices, data breaches, abusive debt recovery, and harassment.
On the other side, WASPA Nigeria contests the very legitimacy of the FCCPC’s intervention, arguing that services tied to telecoms — airtime credit, data loans, mobile-financing products — fall exclusively under the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms regulator created by the Nigerian Communications Act of 2003.
In the affidavit deposed by Ayo Stuffman, the association contends that the FCCPC is acting ultra vires and creating a regulatory regime parallel to the NCC’s.
A jurisdictional war that stretches far beyond a procedural dispute
The conflict is not limited to a question of legal boundaries. It strikes at the commercial core of the market: who collects the licensing fees, who sets the operational conditions, who governs the financial products embedded in telecom networks.
Nigeria’s consumer credit stock reached 3.82 trillion naira at the end of December 2024, up 21.27% on September, according to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) data relayed by The Cable and AFP.
In the fourth quarter of 2024 alone, personal loans disbursed amounted to approximately 470 billion naira.
A growing share flows through mobile applications and telecom-embedded lending products — including MTN’s MoMo Airtime Lending, operated by the country’s largest telecom operator.
If the court validates WASPA’s position, these products fall outside the FCCPC’s scope and come under the sole authority of the NCC, a regulator historically less active on consumer protection issues.
Available data on demand illustrate the social stakes. Between 2021 and 2023, the FCCPC recorded more than 11,000 consumer complaints for harassment, data abuse and unethical debt recovery practices, according to the agency.
The number of lending applications approved by the FCCPC rose from 269 in September 2024 to 408 in March 2025, while 47 apps were delisted and 88 were placed on the watchlist, according to data compiled by AFP and OneSafe.
The DEON Regulations were meant to introduce interest-rate caps, precontractual disclosure obligations, continuous supervision of recovery practices and fines of up to 100 million naira per violation, according to Legit.ng. The compliance deadline was set for January 5, 2026, and the FCCPC had issued written compliance notices to operators with an April 16 deadline, according to WASPA’s affidavit.
It is precisely this enforcement pressure that triggered the legal challenge.
Federal government has said that Nigeria has no plans to seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund’s proposed $50 billion support package for economies hit by the Middle East crisis.
Wale Edun, minister of Finance, who stated this, said that Nigeria’s current reliance on domestic economic reforms and fund mobilisation was working.
Edun gave these insights during the African Finance Ministers’ briefing, on Thursday, at the ongoing IMF/World Bank annual meetings, in Washington, DC.
He noted that for over two years, Nigeria’s investment in economic reforms have begun to yield results, restoring policy credibility and strengthening the country’s resilience against global economic shocks.
Edun told the global west and the rest of the world that Nigeria now prioritises market-based adjustments, avoiding administrative controls, particularly in foreign exchange and petroleum pricing mechanisms.
His assertion follows the disclosure by the IMF that a possible $50 billion support to cushion vulnerable economies against the crisis in the Middle East, was on the pipeline.
Despite clarifying Nigeria’s lack of interest in borrowing, Edun, urged the IMF to ensure faster financial assistance for African countries who will need help from the $50 billion global support package.
“Nigeria has no plans at the moment to approach the IMF or any other such body,” Edun said, emphasising that Nigeria’s reliance on market mechanisms had led to smoother economic adjustments, reduced disruptions and is sustaining the country’s macroeconomic trajectory.
“The IMF talked about $50 billion and we all know that the funding will largely go to Africa, because those are the most vulnerable countries. And the reality is that what we’re asking for in this instance, is that the funds and the support be released quickly and at scale.
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in collaboration with financial market dealers, has introduced the Nigerian Overnight Financing Rate (NOFR), a standardized benchmark designed to enhance transparency and strengthen monetary policy transmission.
Olayemi Michael Cardoso, CBN gov
Hakama Sidi Ali, spokesperson of the CBN in a statement on Friday, said that the the NOFR is expected to improve price discovery and transparency, while promoting consistent pricing of money market instruments across Nigeria’s financial system.
The regulator noted that the new benchmark positions Africa’s most populous country alongside leading global reference rates such as SOFR in the United States, SONIA in the United Kingdom, €STR in the Eurozone, and TONA in Japan.
“It also complements African benchmarks such as JIBAR (South Africa). Following a stakeholder engagement session held on February 27, 2026, where market participants formally adopted the benchmark, and subsequent regulatory approval, NOFR is now in use, with the CBN serving as the benchmark administrator.
“The bank will ensure governance, transparency, and regular publication of the rate,” CBN stated.
FCCPC Denies Banning Airtime Borrowing, Blames Cartel for Misinformation
Court Suspends Enforcement of FCCPC’s Reform on Loan Apps
FG Rules Out Borrowing from IMF’s $50Bn Support Fund
CBN Introduces Overnight Financing Rate to Compete with US, EU
AfriStakes Unveils Platform to Connect SMEs with Investors
Canal+ to Cut Jobs as Part Sweeping Restructuring
NBC Boss Urges Content Ceators to Participate in DSO
NITDA Takes Over National Digital Architecture System
DLM SPV PLC Lists ₦9.00bn AAA-Rated Medium-Term Notes on FMDQ Exchange, Sets Benchmark in Corporate Bond Market
FG Shifting Focus to “Meaningful Connectivity” to Drive Inclusion – Minister
News2 days agoLagos Targets Vulnerable Residents in Expanded Social Register
E-Business2 days agoCAC Urges Users to Secure Accounts after Cyberattack Scare
E-Financial2 days agoIMF Downgrades Nigeria’s GDP Outlook, Warns of Rising Risks
E-Financial2 days agoCBN Proposes 30-Member Mediation Panel for Loan Disputes
E-Financial2 days agoNDIC Seeks Court Nods to Liquidate 89 Failed Banks
E-Financial2 days agoSEC Sets N7.5Bn Capital Floor to Shield Investors in FTZE Public Offerings
News2 days agoStudy Shows 38% of Northern Women Lack Access to Financial Services
Telecom1 day agoMTN Suspends Data, Airtime Borrowing Service over New FCCPC Lending Rules