Fintech Snacks 🍿 | July 27 2023
My job is to make sure your African fintech reading list is lit 🔥
Hey peeps,
A warm welcome to all new and old subscribers to Fintech Snacks 🍿,
In this 4-minute read, I’ll recommend three articles, reports, podcasts, webinars etc., that deeply explore a particular company, product, business model or any emerging issues within Africa’s fintech market. Here to help you separate insight from pure hype.
So what topics ground my fintech wheels this week?
Here you go 👇🏾:
#1: McKinsey’s Forward Thinking podcast on avoiding another false dawn for Africa
After reading a few introductory lines about the guest speaker (Carlos Lopes), I didn’t need much convincing.
He’s a development economist whose originally from Guinea-Bissau, former policy director to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and currently a University of Cape Town professor.
Two perspectives he touches on that got me thinking:
All the major technological tools and services being advanced for future generations won’t be consumed by an ageing population (i.e. most advanced Western and East Asian economies). They’ll need a vibrant, young consumer base which Africa readily offers. Thus, Africa still matters.
Africa will add roughly 800m working-age adults by 2050, a figure that dwarfs other regions like China, India, Europe etc. The internet will do an equal, or in some cases, a better job of educating this vastly young population than traditional formal institutions.
#2: 👨👩👧👦 NY Times on How a vast demographic shift will reshape the World
A co-worker recommended this one. First off, the visualizations in this piece are off the chain!
Coincidentally, I think some of the points made here throw some vital caveats to some of Carlos Lopes's views about Africa’s mega-population advantage (in recommendation #1)
To really kick off, Africa will need more than a massive youth population. Philip O’Keefe, a researcher on ageing in East Asia, puts it so well, “Demography is the raw material,” he says. “The dividend is the interaction of the raw material and good policies.”
#3: The Open Africa podcast on Lazerpay, Eyowo and navigating B2C
Recently stumbled on this podcast. The “open” in their name is quite apt because the three hosts (Laolu, Furo & Nosa) spare no cents in their conversation. If you want insider scopes into the under-belly of Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem (the good, the bad, the ugly), they have the plugs.
Though the banter can veer off-topic for too long at some points.
One key point they make that I sympathise with is that retail crypto in Nigeria is in the ICU and may never recover. The exits of this year alone (Paxful, Lazerpay) seemed to nail the coffin in place. (I already hear the crypto bulls unbuckling their shoes to throw them at me)
Some fun I got up to two weekends ago
I was at Lagos Startup Week y’all
Of course, I forgot to take pictures while at the event
So all you get is a late photo I quickly took while driving back with hubs, lol
It’s a wrap. Catch ya next week!
Nchy 😊
Disclaimer: All content in this newsletter solely reflects my views and opinions. They are not associated with my current employer.