Nigeria stands at the forefront of Africa’s financial technology evolution, boasting one of the continent’s strongest and fastest-growing fintech sectors. While companies like Flutterwave, Moniepoint, Kuda, Paystack, and Opay have propelled the industry to global relevance, a central question persists: Has this growth truly advanced financial inclusion for the average Nigerian, especially those at the bottom of the economic pyramid?
Fintech, a fusion of “financial technology,” represents the dynamic shift of financial services into the digital ecosystem. It encompasses the innovative apps, software, and platforms that empower users to take direct control of their economic lives, from executing transactions to strategizing long-term wealth.
Born from our digital-driven initiative to provide practical solutions to age-old financial hurdles, fintechs have transformed smartphones into powerful tools for banking, investing, and borrowing. This has cemented its role not just as a convenience, but as an integral component of everyday financial well-being.
Kuda’s 2018 relaunch is a prime example of this transition. Positioning itself as “The Bank of the Free,” Kuda differentiated through low transfer fees and app-based banking at a time when Nigeria’s financial inclusion rate stood at 63.2%, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
Similarly, Opay’s 2018 entry marked one of the fastest expansions the sector has seen. In under three years, the company processed around 20% of Nigeria’s POS transactions and grew from 10 million users in 2020 to more than 30 million in 2022, supported by an extensive 300,000-agent offline network. Its strong funding trajectory, including a $400 million capital injection in 2021, fueled rapid expansion and a $2 billion valuation.
These numbers depict remarkable industry progress. Yet, a deeper look at national financial inclusion trends reveals a mismatch between fintech expansion and inclusion growth. While Opay alone added an average of 10 million users annually between 2020 and 2024, formal financial inclusion nationwide moved from 56% in 2020 to about 64% in 2022. This raises critical questions: If fintech adoption is growing this rapidly, why are millions still unbanked, underbanked, or financially excluded?
According to EFInA’s Access to Finance survey, about 26% of Nigerian adults still lack access to basic financial services such as savings accounts, loans, credit facilities, or insurance. Many of these individuals live in rural communities or operate in low-income brackets where digital financial services are either inaccessible or not designed with their realities in mind. The question becomes not just how many people are being reached, but who is being reached, and who is being left behind.
The 2024 global fintech map shows a dramatic concentration of fintech activity in more mature markets. North America hosts over 12,000 fintech companies, Europe roughly 9,200, and Asia-Pacific around 6,365. In contrast, the entire African continent has just over 1,200, with Nigeria accounting for approximately 430. While this comparison highlights the continent’s developmental gap, it also underscores the massive opportunity in underserved markets, markets where millions still transact outside the formal financial system.
Informal economic participation is particularly pronounced among women. Though women power much of the informal economy, owning shops, running savings circles, and managing family finances, they often rely on unstructured financial systems. This gap between economic contribution and access to formal financial services limits their ability to scale businesses, build credit, secure insurance, or accumulate long-term wealth.
To truly transform financial inclusion, fintechs must move beyond acquiring already banked urban consumers and begin solving for the realities of rural, low-income, and informal earners. This means shifting from a saturated payment-focused market into unexplored service layers such as micro-investment tools, digital cooperative systems, low-interest microloans backed by alternative credit scoring, community insurance models, B2B software for small informal retailers, and blockchain-backed infrastructure for transparency and inclusion.
Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem is rich, fast-growing, and globally recognized. However, the next phase of growth will not be defined merely by user numbers, transaction values, or valuations. It will be defined by how effectively financial technology expands opportunity for those historically shut out of the formal financial system. As the digital economy continues to mature, the fintechs that win will be those that build not just convenience, but access, empowerment, and mobility for every segment of Nigerian society.
