Fintech in Africa remains one of the continent’s most vibrant and quickly changing sectors. Over 1,000 fintech companies are active in key markets such as Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, and Ghana. By 2025, the ecosystem is expected to grow to a $150 billion market, indicating enormous potential for innovation and digital financial inclusion. With more than 430 fintech businesses and $2 billion in investment in 2024 alone, Nigeria continues to be a prominent player in the fintech industry, but many of the same issues that exist there are also present in the larger African fintech scene. There exist adoption barriers and challenges that many fintechs face that hinder growth and long-term success. Challenges that highlight the lack of user-driven feedback and insight-driven strategies that inform optimal product design and business decisions.
Fintechs must manage rising inflation (e.g., 34.8% in Nigeria), volatile exchange rates, and increased regulatory scrutiny throughout the continent, even as advancements in generative AI, digital identity systems, and regulatory frameworks (such as the Payment Services Act in Kenya or Nigeria’s open banking regulation) present opportunities. Interestingly, 29% of African fintech companies are implementing generative AI to enhance client engagement, fraud detection, and operational effectiveness.
This report uses real-world cases of some of the most notable fintech shutdowns such as South Africa’s M-Pesa , Zazuu, KippaPay, and others to portray the common oversights of the African fintech market including building products based on assumptions rather than research, weak data validation, poor market testing, faulty pricing or models, lack of attention to sociocultural factors, among others.
To build products that not only survive but thrive, fintech companies must:
- Engage deeply with users through continuous context-rich research, before, during and after product development.
- Design for simplicity and inclusivity, including low-income users, informal sector workers, people in rural or low-connectivity areas, women, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and people with low digital literacy, ensuring no one is left behind
- Validate assumptions with real-world pilots and testing, and iterating based on honest user feedback.
- Align business models with the realities of users’ incomes, digital access, and trust networks.
- Establish a clear bridge between user research and business strategy by highlighting insights and using language from user research that resonates with C-suite decision-makers, thus empowering leaders to implement more user-centered processes across the organization.
By avoiding these common pitfalls and building with context, African fintechs can create trusted, relevant solutions that drive onboarding, adoption, and retention, unlocking the vast potential of Nigeria’s digital financial ecosystem.
