Why trust is the most valuable currency in fintech — Perkins Ogedengbe

Perkins Ogedengbe is a global partnerships, market expansion, and commercial strategy leader with experience scaling platform ecosystems across Africa, Europe, and North America. She specialises in building enterprise partnerships, launching products in regulated markets, and driving platform adoption and revenue growth across emerging economies. With a background in fintech infrastructure, growth strategy, and founder-led operations, she has helped organisations expand into new markets while delivering sustainable commercial growth. In this interview with CHISOM MICHAEL, she discusses building trust in global partnerships, balancing growth with regulatory compliance, scaling fintech across emerging markets, cross-border payments in Africa, AI’s role in financial services, leadership, and the future of financial infrastructure.

You have worked across Africa, Europe, and North America. What differences have shaped the way partnerships are built and sustained in these markets?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that while payments are global, trust is still built locally.

Across Europe and North America, partnerships are typically built on institutional maturity. The conversations begin with regulatory compliance, operational resilience, cybersecurity, governance and how your infrastructure integrates into existing financial systems. There is an expectation that these foundations already exist, so commercial discussions focus on scale, efficiency and long-term value creation.

Across much of Africa, those same principles matter, but the context is different. Financial infrastructure is evolving at different speeds across the continent, regulatory frameworks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and customer behaviour varies significantly from one market to another. A payment solution that succeeds in East Africa may require an entirely different commercial and regulatory approach in West or Central Africa.

What has always impressed me about Africa is its willingness to innovate around infrastructure constraints. Mobile money, agency banking and digital wallets didn’t emerge because they were fashionable; they emerged because they solved real economic problems.

Ultimately, sustainable partnerships are not determined by geography but by alignment. Whether you’re working with a financial institution in London, Lagos or Toronto, the same questions eventually arise: Can we trust your infrastructure? Can we rely on your governance? Will this partnership still create value five years from now?

Technology may open the first door, but trust is what keeps partnerships alive.

Expanding financial infrastructure across regulated markets often comes with operational and policy challenges. What has been the most difficult balance to maintain between growth and compliance?

There is often an assumption that growth and compliance sit on opposite sides of the table. I don’t see them that way.

The strongest financial institutions recognise that compliance is not simply about satisfying regulators; it is about protecting customers, preserving market confidence and creating sustainable businesses.

When you’re expanding across multiple jurisdictions, every market presents a different regulatory philosophy. Some regulators prioritise innovation, others prioritise consumer protection, while others focus heavily on financial stability and anti-money laundering controls. The challenge is building operating models that can accommodate those differences without creating unnecessary complexity for customers.

I’ve learned that the organisations which scale most successfully are rarely those that move the fastest. They are the ones that invest early in governance, transaction monitoring, risk management and regulatory engagement.

That discipline becomes increasingly important as payments become more instantaneous. Faster settlement should never mean weaker oversight.

In many respects, compliance has become a competitive advantage. Financial institutions want partners they can trust, regulators want participants they can supervise confidently, and customers want assurance that their money is secure.

Many fintech companies focus on scaling quickly. In your experience, what separates sustainable expansion from short-term market entry?

The fintech industry has, understandably, celebrated speed. But speed alone has never been a durable competitive advantage.

Market entry is relatively easy. Building relevance is considerably harder.

I’ve always believed that expansion should be measured less by the number of countries entered and more by the depth of participation within those markets. That means active merchants, reliable transaction volumes, strong customer retention, healthy unit economics, and trusted local relationships.

Before entering any new market, I believe every leadership team should ask three questions.

Does this solve a meaningful customer problem?

Can we operate within a clear regulatory framework?

Do we have the partnerships required to sustain growth once the initial excitement fades?

If those questions cannot be answered confidently, expansion often becomes an expensive exercise in geography rather than value creation.

Sustainable growth is patient. It requires investment in people, infrastructure, compliance, customer education and local partnerships. The companies that endure are usually not those that launch first; they are the ones that remain relevant long after others have exited.

You have led partnerships with banks, PSPs, and enterprise platforms. What qualities do you look for before committing to a long-term strategic partnership?

Technology compatibility is important, but it is rarely the deciding factor.

The first thing I assess is strategic alignment. Are we solving the same problem, and are we committed to creating value beyond the first commercial agreement?

The second is operational discipline. Payments operate on trust, and trust is reflected in settlement performance, system resilience, fraud controls, customer support and transparency during operational incidents.

Third is regulatory maturity. Financial services are ultimately a confidence industry. Organisations that invest in governance tend to become stronger long-term partners because they understand that reputation compounds over time.

Finally, I pay close attention to leadership. Markets change. Regulations evolve. Technologies become obsolete.

Strong leadership determines whether a partnership adapts successfully when those inevitable changes occur.

The most successful partnerships I’ve experienced have never been purely commercial relationships. They became shared commitments to solving increasingly complex problems together.

They create value not simply because contracts exist, but because both organisations continue investing in the relationship.

Cross-border payments remain a major conversation in African fintech. What structural gaps still need to be addressed to improve the movement of money across the continent?

When people discuss cross-border payments in Africa, the conversation often centres on speed. In my view, speed is no longer the primary challenge. The more fundamental issue is connectivity between financial systems.

Africa is home to 54 countries, more than 40 currencies, multiple regional economic communities, and diverse regulatory frameworks. While domestic payment systems have advanced significantly over the past decade, moving money across borders still involves fragmented settlement infrastructure, correspondent banking dependencies, foreign exchange constraints, and varying compliance requirements. The result is higher costs, slower settlement and increased complexity for businesses operating across the continent.

This has real economic implications. According to the World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the most expensive regions globally for remittances, with transfer costs still significantly above the UN Sustainable Development Goal target of 3%. For SMEs and corporates alike, these frictions increase the cost of doing business and limit access to regional markets.

This is precisely why the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area will depend not only on reducing tariffs but also on modernising the financial infrastructure that supports trade. A manufacturer in Ghana should be able to pay a supplier in Kenya with the same confidence and efficiency as a domestic transaction. Until payments move as seamlessly as goods and services are expected to, the full economic potential of AfCFTA will remain constrained.

Encouragingly, we’re beginning to see progress through initiatives focused on regional payment interoperability and local currency settlement. These developments have the potential to reduce dependence on hard currencies for intra-African trade, improve liquidity efficiency, and shorten settlement cycles. But achieving scale will require sustained collaboration between central banks, regulators, commercial banks, payment providers and policymakers.

Ultimately, cross-border payments are not simply about moving money. They are about enabling trade, attracting investment, empowering African businesses to expand beyond national borders and accelerating economic integration. The institutions that will shape the next decade are unlikely to be those processing the highest number of transactions. They will be those building the trusted infrastructure that allows commerce to flow effortlessly across the continent.

Your work involves platform ecosystems and merchant adoption. What have you learnt about trust when introducing new financial products into emerging markets?

One of the biggest misconceptions in financial services is that customers adopt innovation because it is new. In reality, customers adopt innovation because it reduces uncertainty.

Trust is rarely created by advertising or product demonstrations. It is built through consistent execution. For a merchant, trust is remarkably practical. Can I receive my settlement on time? Are transaction failures resolved quickly? Is pricing transparent? If something goes wrong at midnight, will someone respond?

Those questions often matter more than the sophistication of the technology itself.

This becomes even more important in emerging markets, where many businesses have experienced service interruptions, regulatory changes or inconsistent financial infrastructure. In those environments, reliability becomes a competitive advantage.

I’ve also learned that trust extends beyond the customer relationship. Financial products succeed when regulators, banking partners, merchants and technology providers all have confidence in the ecosystem. If one part of that chain loses confidence, adoption slows considerably.

Another important lesson is that education should never be underestimated. Launching a new payment product is not simply about deploying technology; it is about helping businesses understand how that technology improves cash flow, operational efficiency and customer experience. Technology creates access, reliability creates confidence, and consistency creates long-term adoption, with those three elements remaining inseparable in payments.

You moved from business development into leading global sales and partnerships. How has your leadership approach changed as your responsibilities expanded across multiple regions?

Early in my career, success was largely defined by personal performance, winning partnerships, negotiating commercial agreements and delivering revenue growth.

Leadership changed my perspective entirely.

Today, my role is far less about being the person with the answers and far more about creating an environment where talented people can make good decisions consistently, even when I’m not in the room.

As organisations expand across regions, complexity increases exponentially. Different regulatory environments, customer behaviours, cultural expectations and commercial priorities mean that leadership can no longer rely on proximity. It relies on clarity.

I’ve become much more intentional about building operating principles rather than directing individual actions. If people understand the purpose behind a decision, they make better decisions independently.

Another lesson has been the importance of cross-functional leadership. Payments is one of the few industries where commercial success depends on legal, compliance, product, engineering, finance and operations moving together. Sales can generate demand, but sustainable growth only happens when the entire organisation executes as one.

I’ve also learned that leadership becomes less visible as organisations mature. The objective is not to be involved in every decision but to build systems, governance and culture that continue delivering results without constant intervention.

Ultimately, leadership is measured less by what you achieve personally and more by the capability you leave behind in the organisation.

As a board advisor for a leadership programme focused on AI-driven engagement, how do you see artificial intelligence reshaping leadership and decision-making in fintech?

Artificial intelligence is often discussed as a technology story. I believe it is fundamentally a leadership story.

The greatest impact of AI will not simply be automation; it will be the quality and speed of decision-making.

Financial institutions generate extraordinary amounts of data every second, including payments, customer interactions, fraud signals, liquidity movements and

operational metrics. Historically, much of that information has been analysed retrospectively. AI enables leaders to move from hindsight to foresight.

Imagine being able to identify emerging fraud patterns before losses occur, predict customer churn before accounts become inactive, optimise liquidity positions in real time, or detect operational bottlenecks before customers notice them. Those capabilities fundamentally change how organisations allocate resources and manage risk.

However, the introduction of AI also raises important governance questions. Transparency, explainability, data quality and accountability become increasingly critical as more decisions are supported by machine learning.

One principle I hold strongly is that AI should enhance judgment, not replace it.

Leadership will continue to require empathy, ethics and accountability qualities that algorithms cannot replicate.

The organisations that benefit most from artificial intelligence will not necessarily be those with the most advanced models. They will be those that combine technological capability with strong governance, clear values and responsible leadership.

In financial services, trust remains the currency that matters most. AI should strengthen that trust, never compromise it.

You have worked closely with founder-led operations and scaling businesses. What lessons have you learned about leadership during periods of rapid growth?

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that growth amplifies both strengths and weaknesses. What works for a company of twenty people rarely works for an organisation of two hundred, and certainly not for one operating across multiple markets.

In the early stages of a business, founders often succeed through speed, intuition and personal involvement. They are close to every customer, every decision and every challenge. But as organisations grow, leadership has to evolve from being the person who solves every problem to building systems that enable others to solve them consistently.

That transition is often the most difficult. It requires leaders to become comfortable with delegation, governance and standardisation without losing the entrepreneurial culture that made the business successful in the first place.

I’ve also found that rapid growth places enormous pressure on alignment. Revenue may grow quickly, but unless product, compliance, operations, finance and commercial teams are growing together, the organisation eventually reaches a point where complexity begins to outpace execution.

Leadership during scale is therefore less about managing growth and more about managing clarity. People perform better when they understand not just what is expected of them, but why those expectations matter.

Ultimately, sustainable growth is not measured by how quickly a business expands. It is measured by how well the organisation continues to execute as that complexity increases. Great leadership is about building institutions that can thrive beyond the founders themselves.

You advise on women’s leadership programmes while operating at a senior level in fintech infrastructure. What do most leadership conversations still get wrong?

I think many leadership conversations still focus too heavily on preparing individuals for leadership and not enough on preparing organisations to benefit from diverse leadership.

We often speak about confidence, resilience and personal development, and those are important. But capability has never been the only barrier. Access remains equally significant.

Access to strategic projects. Access to executive sponsorship. Access to commercial responsibility. Access to boardrooms where decisions are made.

In financial services, careers are often shaped by exposure as much as experience. Leaders grow when they are trusted with complexity, not simply when they attend leadership programmes.

Another misconception is that diversity initiatives should be viewed as social programmes rather than business strategy. Organisations with diverse leadership teams are often better positioned to understand different

customer segments, challenge conventional thinking and make more balanced decisions in increasingly global markets.

For me, leadership has never been about occupying a seat at the table. It is about creating environments where different perspectives improve the quality of decisions.

That is particularly important in fintech, where the customers we serve represent different cultures, income levels, geographies and financial behaviours. If leadership does not reflect that diversity of experience, innovation inevitably becomes narrower.

The future of leadership is not about creating more leaders who think alike. It is about creating institutions that recognise different perspectives as a competitive advantage.

According to your profile, you led a revenue growth of 25% in under 12 months. Walk us through the decision that made it possible, not the outcome itself?

People often assume that revenue growth begins with sales. In my experience, it begins with focus.

The most important decision we made was to stop thinking about revenue as the objective and start thinking about customer problems as the objective. That may sound simple, but it fundamentally changed how we prioritised opportunities.

Rather than pursuing every available market or customer segment, we became more deliberate about where our infrastructure could create the greatest value. We spent more time understanding payment friction, settlement challenges, regulatory requirements and operational pain points before discussing commercial terms.

That approach also changed how we worked internally. Sales became more closely aligned with product, compliance, engineering and customer success because solving complex financial problems rarely sits within one department.

Equally important was recognising that not all revenue is equal. Sustainable growth comes from customers who continue to transact because the solution has become embedded in their operations, not because they were acquired through aggressive commercial incentives.

I’ve always believed that commercial leadership is about making decisions that remain valuable long after quarterly targets have been achieved. Revenue is an outcome of trust, operational excellence and relevance.

The decision that drove growth was therefore not a pricing decision or a sales campaign. It was choosing to build relationships around long-term value creation rather than short-term transactions.

Looking at the future of fintech across Africa and Europe, what opportunities do you believe are still underestimated by global investors and operators?

I believe one of the most underestimated opportunities is the convergence of financial infrastructure across continents.

For many years, fintech has been discussed in terms of individual products, payments, lending, wallets or remittances. Increasingly, those categories are becoming interconnected through shared infrastructure, open banking, digital identity, artificial intelligence and real-time payment networks.

Africa is particularly well-positioned in this transition because many markets are building modern financial infrastructure without the burden of extensive legacy systems. Combined with one of the world’s youngest and fastest-growing populations, increasing smartphone adoption and expanding digital connectivity, the continent represents an environment where financial innovation can scale rapidly when supported by the right infrastructure.

At the same time, Europe brings regulatory maturity, capital markets and deep institutional expertise. The greatest opportunity is therefore not Africa in isolation or Europe in isolation, but the increasing integration between the two.

As trade relationships deepen, particularly under initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area, the demand for efficient cross-border payments, embedded financial services, and interoperable digital infrastructure will continue to grow.

I also believe investors are beginning to shift their attention from consumer-facing applications to foundational infrastructure. The next generation of value creation is likely to come from businesses that enable financial institutions, enterprises and governments to connect more efficiently rather than simply offering another customer-facing payment experience.

Looking ahead, the future of fintech will be defined less by who builds the next app and more by who builds the trusted infrastructure that allows global commerce to move more seamlessly. Those who recognise that shift early will shape the next decade of financial services.