Past years we have seen different African Fintech startups like Flutterwave, Paystack, Nala, Float, Mono, and others doing a lot to solve major financial problems on the continent, the following is a list of financial problems in Africa which either no one or very few people have noticed nor start solving them;
1.Local Payment integrations on social medias
With social medias keep growing day to day, most Africans are now shopping much on social medias like Instagram and Whatsapp more than they shop on ecommerce marketplaces like Jumia.
A demand to integrate local payments on such platforms is growing a lot and would boost more sales to SMEs and avoid fraud rate. Technically we need to integrate local payments on these social medias to first allow Africans buy on social medias via their Local payment methods like M-pesa and other local payment methods, on other hand we need to integrate local payments on these social medias so that African small businesses can accept international payments direct to their local payment platforms like M-pesa and other local payment platforms.
Last year Chippercash parterned with Twitter for an integration that enable Chippercash users receive Twitter Tips via Chippercash, from different people globally. After receiving Twitter Tips via Chippercash, these users are able to withdraw their money from Chippercash to their mobile money or Bank. It is an integration that will power more creators and even African SMEs in the future.
Such integration is what i believe should happen on more social medias like Instagram and Facebook to power more creators and SMEs who are selling on those platforms.
2.Mobile Money Agents Are Not Digitized Enough To Grow And Access More Opportunities
Being among the most important players in digital inclusion on Africa, most Mobile money agents are not yet digitized enough with more features like modern dashboards for their transactions and insights which could help them access credits and more opportunities .In a Country like Tanzania still a mobile money agent can not transfer their float balance from a mobile money agent account of one Telecom to the other. There is major need to digitize this area with more services like agent’s single wallet for all mobile money so that a mobile money agent can manage and transact all their floats in one wallet and be able to serve any customer from any mobile money.
It is very common in Africa to see a mobile money agent is working while holding 1 smartphone, 2 non smartphones and 5 POS machines of different financial institutions, it is a time to improve all these by building digital tools to make all these things work smoothly.
3.Most Mobile Money Users Have No Credit Scores
While mobile money keep growing and set all time highs every year then there is no doubt that one day the African continent will be just all about mobile money.
But you know what? Most mobile money users have no credit scores and to date most of them can’t rely on their mobile money financial records to access credits and more digital opportunities. With new trends of “Buy Now Pay Later” financial services, how can we bring such services to people whose credit scores are doubted by creditors?.
4.Mobile Money For Businesses(B2B) Is 0.1% Built
For past years Mobile money has done a lot to p2p and other consumer based payments but it has not done a lot on b2b area and that creates multi billion dollar opportunities for startups to innovate on b2b mobile money with services like automated mobile money Payrolls, Tax issues, invoicing, debt collections and more mobile money api services.
5.Online And Offline Fraud Detection And Prevention
Not just in Africa, Fraud is a major challenge Globally.Speaking of Africa, last week(11th February 2022) it was reported in Tanzania that a famous payment Company in the country ‘Selcom Paytech Limited’ was hacked by it’s merchant who ran away with $1 Million of Selcom Paytech Company Limited before Police officers caught him and other suspects.
With the growing number of new Fintech startups launching in Africa, there has to be more serious companies with major focus on detecting, preventing and fighting online and offline financial fraud.
6.Investing On Swahilies
Consumer payments on the African continent are expected to top $2.1 trillion by 2025, given that only about 5% of these transactions are currently digitized.
Swahilies is working to digitize business payments in Africa with their different products like;
- Swahilies Pay for smes to accept local mobile money and international card payments
- Swahilies for consumers to make flexible payments
- Swahilies Api for startups to integrate and accept digital payments
Click here to read their pitch deck/investment memo. It might end up be one of the big investment opportunity for you
Source: John Haule | Medium.com