Africa’s fintech investments drop 17% in Q1

Fintech investments in the African continent declined year-on-year by 17 percent to $331 million in the first quarter of 2023, according to FinTech Global.

The global provider of financial technology information services also revealed that the second most populated continent recorded a 69 percent drop in deals.

“Removing MNT-Halan’s deal ($260million), African fintech companies only raised $71 million in Q1 2023. The largest deal in Q1 2022 was from m-kopa ($75million), which provides connected asset financing solutions,’ it said.
It added when removing these two large deals from the figures, African fintech investment in Q1 dropped 78 percent.

The firm added that Nigeria was the most active country for fintech dealmaking in Africa during Q1 with 12 deals, a 32 percent share of total deals

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“South Africa was the second most active fintech country with six deals, a 16 percent share of deals and Kenya was third with five deals, a 14 percent share of deals.

“The most active fintech subsector in Africa was PayTech with nine deals, a 24 percent share of total deals. The second most active was Lending Technology with seven deals, a 19 percent share of deals and InsurTech and RegTech were joint third with four deals each,” it said.

Analysts at the firm project that Africa may have the highest growth for digital payments (total transaction value) of any region globally at a CAGR of 16.1 percent from 2023 – 2027.

“In total Africa is on track to have a total transaction value of $146billion, a 1.5 percent share of global transaction value in 2023.”