In 2020, the Africa Fintech Network (AFN), in partnership with findexable and Cenfri, launched the Africa Fintech Radar. This note shares the preliminary findings as the Radar strives to be the first Pan-African fintech census and digital map that tracks fintech activity across the continent.
The note aims to provide preliminary insights to industry, development partners, regulators and investors. It focuses on summarising the key findings from information and views of African fintechs and associations. This note forms the first output for the Africa Fintech Radar initiative that has the ambition of making more comprehensive and real-time data freely available. Using data provided by Africa Fintech Network, Cenfri and findexable, the Africa Fintech Radar is the first live listing which strives to showcase fintechs operating in Africa. The listing is compiled from a composite of the following three groups of metrics – 1) a quality score based on the size and success of fintech companies in a location, 2) a quantity score based on the number of firms, and 3) an ecosystem score using selected metrics from the Doing Business Indices, Africa Fintech Associations and survey data. All companies listed on the interactive
map are qualified and updated fintechs to the best of our knowledge and according to available data.
Why now?
African fintechs still have many challenges to overcome in a market that comprises 54 countries, each with a different jurisdiction and unique fintech environment. The opportunity is to create a unified, transparent African fintech ecosystem for the benefit of society at large. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered deep digital change globally, not least in Africa, which represents nearly half (46%) of all global mobile-money accounts.
The Africa Fintech Radar will provide critical information to better understand and address the pain points, remove the barriers for fintechs to contribute to Africa into becoming a truly inclusive and sustainable digital economy. This project builds on initial market insights provided by the Global COVID-19 Fintech Market Rapid Assessment Survey conducted by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
