Africa has had the pleasure of leapfrogging many legacy technologies and systems. You only need to look at the ubiquitous presence of smartphones that has penetrated far and wide compared to the legacy landline telephone technology.
Currently, Internet penetration across the continent is rapidly increasing and most users are surfing on their mobile devices. This development is opening avenues for Internet-based innovations that will about 60% of Africa’s unbanked population participate in the global financial economy.
By all means, the African FinTech scene has matured into a fast pace innovation environment over the past decade.
Ghana’s Fintech ecosystem is one of the most active in the Sub-Saharan region. Leading emerging markets financial services fund, Leapfrog Investments, has invested over $15 million in Ghana’s insurance sector since 2012, in various companies including insurance tech company, BIMA; and Ghana’s active Mobile Money user-base has more than doubled in the past year. The World Bank’s Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) expects more positive progress to continue especially since new Mobile Money regulations were passed in July 2015 which have awakened policymakers of the critical role that Mobile Money plays in driving financial inclusion.
The UK Trade & Investment department in collaboration with Next Bank Accra, a leading financial technology services stakeholder engagement community, would explore the trends and opportunities in the Ghanaian Fintech landscape via a webinar on the 5th of April 2016 13:00-14:00(GMT).
“The idea is to expose Ghana’s Fintech landscape to the world’s Fintech capital – London, for investment, trade and knowledge transfer opportunities.“ says Paul Damalie, Chapter Lead of Next Bank, Accra.
Key stakeholders including Fintech startups like Interpay Africa and Zeepay will build the case for what the next phase of development for Ghana’s Fintech landscape should look like. You can register for the webinar via this link: http://bit.ly/1UlNg4l.