Fostering Digital Financial Services in Africa: A Case of Embracing Innovation for Business and Inclusion
With its 54 countries and a total population of 1.2 billion (projected to double over the next 30 years) hopes are high for Africa's long term growth. This growth will be fueled by, amongst other factors, a quicker embrace of contextualized technological innovation, of which mobile and digital technologies would be an essential part. As a matter of fact, Africa is an innovator and eager adopter in all things digital. Mobile money originally developed in East Africa and today, financial technology is changing the social and economic landscape across the continent at unprecedented speed. The latest example is M Gurush, South Sudan's mobile based and digital services solution launched in July 2019, dubbed the first and only national network of the country, with potential to change the financial landscape and create job opportunities for youth in rural and urban areas. Beyond mobile money, there are already more than 122 million active users of digital financial services in Africa. These services range from payments to savings and from credit to investments and insurance. As well as aiding financial inclusion, these services concurrently provide new, viable, profitable business and job opportunities. Developing and investing in digital financial services have therefore the potential for doing good while doing well. This paper makes the case that fostering digital financial services is crucial to social and economic progress in Africa and provides a genuine roadmap for this process.