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It’s been two days of back-to-back panels at the Inclusive Finance Forum (IFF) in Kigali, but Wednesday’s main event, a panel session that featured James Mwangi, the managing director and CEO of Equity Group Holdings, Mary Ellen Iskenderian, the CEO of Women’s World Banking, and Serge Dioum, the CEO of MTN FinTech Group, tried to deliver an answer to one of the most pressing questions in African fintech: Who will own Africa’s financial future and build the rails? While the three executives laid out competing visions for Africa’s next financial era, they all agreed on one thing: that financial inclusion alone is no longer enough. They also agreed that the next phase for African finance is about wealth creation, independence, and infrastructure. The infrastructure argument Mwangi opened with a sweeping thesis. The future of financial services, he argued, will not be defined by apps or products, but by the digital public infrastructure on which everything else sits. Digital IDs will replace physical passports. Remote account opening is already replacing branch visits. Finance is embedded so deeply in daily life that it functions less like a service and more like a utility. “I see digital public infrastructure as a new business airport and port that we will have in the future as the hub of economic development. The modern economy will be built on digital public infrastructure,” said Mwangi. He argued that for this infrastructure to function, two things must follow: interoperability standards that allow systems to trust each other across borders and a citizen-owned digital wallet not tethered to a bank or a telco, but one that belongs to the individual, allowing them to connect to whatever services they choose. The implication of his statement was clear: whoever controls the wallet controls the relationship, and Mwangi was suggesting that neither the banks nor the telcos should. Iskenderian, who leads the world’s largest nonprofit focused on women’s financial inclusion, brought the conversation back to a stubborn reality. Africa has the highest percentage of women entrepreneurs globally, with over 58% of the continent’s self-employed population being women. Despite this, access to credit for these women has barely budged, even as technology has advanced dramatically. The problem, she said, is structural. Banks are still making lending decisions based on 19th-century ideas about collateral, which women have historically never owned. The data that could transform credit decisions—transaction histories flowing through mobile money platforms, repayment patterns, and business activity—is sitting right there, largely unused, she said. “Why isn’t what you know about the way women pay back, the way rural people pay back, and how their businesses are structured being incorporated into credit decisions?” said Iskenderian. She also flagged a regulatory bottleneck that she said was quietly undermining progress. Credit guarantees have expanded across Africa, enabling banks to lend more freely to small businesses, but in many countries, banks still don’t get capital charge relief for loans backed by those guarantees—a technical gap that effectively cancels out the policy’s intent. Image Source: IFF 2026. The small business finance gap in emerging markets and developing economies stands at $5.7 trillion, rising to $8 trillion when informal enterprises are included. This gap grew by over 27% between 2015 and 2019, more than double the rate of GDP growth over the same period. Dioum, who oversees MTN’s fintech operations across 14 African markets, pitched a different model altogether. Where Mwangi spoke about public infrastructure and Iskenderian about policy reform, Thiemele spoke about the language of platforms. MTN FinTech, he said, has connected 70,000 partners to its platform through an Open API system. Anyone with an idea can build on top of MTN’s infrastructure, access its customer base, and launch services without requiring any direct intervention from the company. The result: a partner who connects to MTN’s platform gets access to 70 million customers from day one. “Financial inclusion is not enough,” said Dioum. “We need to create wealth for our people so that they can be independent financially and they can have a good life.” Dioum’s vision follows a familiar arc — loans first, then savings, then insurance — with the telco as the enabling layer throughout. The playbook is not new; it is the logic that built mobile money across Africa. The ambition, though, is a full-stack financial ecosystem. He also addressed cross-border interoperability directly: a customer using mobile money in Zambia should be able to pay for goods in Rwanda in real time while in transit. That kind of seamlessness, he argued, is what the next generation of infrastructure must deliver. Will banks survive? Mobile money and fintech have helped to revolutionise African finance, but one pertinent question has been, will banks be part of the future of finance? Mwangi’s response was notably candid. Financial services will always be needed, he said. But who provides them is a more complicated question. The bulk of mobile money, arguably Africa’s most transformative financial product, was not built by banks. Mwangi said Equity Group has been asking itself the same question. On the IFF stage, he announced that the lender is launching an innovation studio in Rwanda, bringing together a team of about 10 innovators at the intersection of capital, technology, and entrepreneurship. The group, Mwangi said, is backed by Equity’s $16 billion balance sheet and designed to co-create with African innovators and stakeholders. “The future is the intersection of knowledge, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and capital, where they meet opportunity, and that’s what we are seeing Rwanda provide us with,” he said. The panel surfaced a tension that runs through Africa’s financial services landscape right now. Banks, telcos, and development institutions all agree on a financially empowered African population transacting seamlessly across borders, but the route is contested. Mwangi wants citizen-owned infrastructure. Iskenderian wants gender-responsive policy reform. Thiemele wants open platforms anchored by telcos. What they all agreed on, and this may be the most consequential shift, is that the language of inclusion is giving way to the language of wealth creation. The question is no longer whether
Read MoreThe National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the country’s tech regulator, through its subsidiary, the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI), has partnered with the Japan International Cooperation Agency to open applications for the fifth cohort of the iHatch Startup Incubation Programme. The iHatch programme is seeking 37 innovation hubs, one from each of Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to serve as state-level hub managers to implement incubation programmes across the country. “Nigeria’s startup ecosystem has grown rapidly over the past decade, but access to structured support remains uneven outside major tech clusters,” said Victoria Fabunmi, National Coordinator, ONDI. “Rather than focusing only on startup recruitment, iHatch adopts a systems-level approach: build stronger hubs, standardise incubation quality, and improve investment readiness outcomes across all 36 states and the FCT.” The move comes at a time when Africa’s startup ecosystem is experiencing growth, raising $3.42 billion in 2025. In Nigeria, however, much of this innovation is concentrated in large cities like Lagos and Abuja, leaving founders outside those cities without structured incubation or mentorship programmes. This is the gap that the iHatch programme intends to fix. Selected hubs will serve as implementation partners responsible for delivering the incubation programme within their states for at least one year. During that time, each hub will recruit and manage about five startups, guiding them through a structured incubation process that will improve their readiness for growth and funding. While a specific monetary grant has not been disclosed, selected hubs will receive operational support and resources to enable them to effectively support participating startups. High-performing hubs may also receive rewards based on their performance during the programme, according to NITDA. “The programme’s primary focus, however, is building strong ecosystem leaders who are committed to developing their local startup ecosystems, rather than positioning the programme primarily as a financial incentive,” Fabunmi said. Eligible innovation hubs must have been in operation for at least a year and must show active engagement within their local ecosystems. They must also possess infrastructure capable of hosting incubation activities. Applications for iHatch Cohort 5 close on March 16. The iHatch incubation programme’s focus on innovation hubs rather than startups places it in a position to address structural gaps, related to geographic location, in Nigeria’s startup ecosystem. NITDA intends to strengthen support for founders at the local level and expand opportunities for founders to scale. “By equipping hubs with structured tools, curriculum frameworks, and coordinated oversight, iHatch aims to create more consistent founder outcomes across regions,” Fabunmi said.
Read MoreThe Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED) has agreed to sell its controlling 54.08% stake in Nation Media Group (NMG) to Taarifa Ltd, owned by Tanzanian billionaire Rostam Azizi, ending a 66-year ownership of East Africa’s largest independent news publisher. The stake, held through NPRT Holdings Africa, represents about 92.6 million shares in the Nairobi-listed company, which operates more than 30 media brands across four countries and reaches over 62 million digital users. AKFED owns NPRT Holdings Africa, an investment vehicle used to hold the fund’s media interests across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The companies did not disclose the value of the transaction. The deal shifts control of one of East Africa’s most influential media groups at a time when publishers across the continent are racing to turn large online audiences into sustainable digital businesses. “We are confident NMG will continue to uphold the values of independent journalism and service to the public that have defined it for over six decades,” AKFED director Sultan Allana said in the statement announcing the sale on Tuesday. Nation Media Group built its reputation on flagship newspapers such as the Daily Nation, but like many global publishers, it has spent the past decade expanding digital platforms as print revenues weaken and readers move online. Its websites, mobile apps, and streaming services now reach tens of millions of users across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda. The ownership change could influence how aggressively the company invests in those platforms. NMG reported revenue of KES 6.2 billion ($48 million) in 2024, down 12.5% year-on-year, and a pre-tax loss of KES 253.6 million ($2 million), even as digital revenue rose 11%. The transaction marks the end of a relationship that began in 1959 when the Aga Khan founded East African Newspapers, the company that later grew into Nation Media Group. The publisher expanded over decades into television, radio, and regional media operations. Today, the group runs news, broadcast, and digital platforms including NTV, Nation Africa, and multiple regional publications. With more than 62 million digital users, NMG operates one of the largest news audiences in the region. Azizi, the incoming majority owner, has prior experience in the region’s media sector. He co-founded Mwananchi Communications in Tanzania, publisher of Mwananchi, The Citizen, and Mwanaspoti. Nation Media later acquired the company during its regional expansion in the early 2000s. The new owner plans to support the company’s digital growth as part of the transition, according to the statement.
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