A new book argues that Africa is the center of digital innovation in the banking system.
The book, Fintech: The Banks Counter-Attack was written by Yves Eonnet and Hervé Manceron, are co-founders of the French digital banking company TagPay.
“Africa is the Silicon Valley of banking,” said the authors. “The bank of the future is being invented in Africa, and it is more agile and close to its customers.”
This explosion of innovation is borne of necessity, as much of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa is unbanked, creating a need for a industry to enable Africans to make payments and store value. The fact that no real system existed to serve this population created a blank canvass of sorts to create a new industry.
As a result, Africa’s fintech innovation is a model for the rest of the world.
This message that Africa is a great environment for fintech innovation has been building steadily in recent years. For this reason, “payments” is one of the pillars of BigFive Digital (along with search, social, mobile and location) and will be a focus at our upcoming BigFive Summit next May in CapeTown.
You can read more about the book, launched at an event in Paris on 25 September, here and here.