Payment failures threaten trust in Africa's fintech sector, executive warns

The burgeoning fintech sector across Africa risks undermining its own growth and sustainability if the underlying infrastructure for digital transactions does not become more resilient and reliable, warned Michael Adesola, Acting Managing Director/CEO of Belema Fintech.

Speaking at the Nigerian Fintech Forum, Adesola urged stakeholders to look beyond metrics like user acquisition and transaction volumes. He argued that the next phase of Africa's fintech evolution hinges on the robustness of its support systems. "Africa doesn’t have a fintech shortage. What we may have is a resilience shortage," Adesola stated. "The real question is no longer how fast we can scale, but whether the infrastructure beneath that scale can be trusted when the pressure comes."

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Africa doesn’t have a fintech shortage. What we may have is a resilience shortage. The real question is no longer how fast we can scale, but whether the infrastructure beneath that scale can be trusted when the pressure comes.

Adesola highlighted that the rapid expansion of fintech services across the continent is placing immense pressure on payment infrastructure. Systems are now expected to handle millions of users, increasing transaction volumes, and increasingly complex financial services. He identified transaction failures as a primary threat to confidence in digital payments. Customers, he noted, are indifferent to where a failure occurs in the payment chain; they only experience a broken promise.

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Every payment is more than a transaction; it is an expectation. It is a promise that money will move. When that promise fails, trust suffers. That is why resilience cannot be an afterthought in fintech; it has to be designed into the infrastructure from the beginning.

"Every payment is more than a transaction; it is an expectation. It is a promise that money will move," Adesola explained. "When that promise fails, trust suffers. That is why resilience cannot be an afterthought in fintech; it has to be designed into the infrastructure from the beginning."

To address these challenges, Adesola called for fintech companies and infrastructure providers to rigorously test their systems, build redundancy into critical services, and enhance interoperability across the financial ecosystem. He also stressed the importance of collaboration, asserting that while competition is necessary, cooperation is vital for the stability of the broader financial system. He concluded by emphasizing that the success of Africa's fintech story depends on recognizing the critical infrastructure, payment rails, processing platforms, cybersecurity, and connectivity, that underpins the user-facing applications. A "beautiful interface cannot compensate for infrastructure that fails at the exact moment a customer needs it," he asserted.

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A beautiful interface cannot compensate for infrastructure that fails at the exact moment a customer needs it.