The Governor of the Bank of Ghana has called for more investment in Africa’s fintech space.
According to Dr. Ernest Addison, this move will accelerate the rate of development and innovation.
He explained that, the industry’s potential largely depends on this issue and the ability for start-ups to access capital.
“…The lack of requisite Investment in African fintechs could slow the pace of innovation and scalability of solutions in achieving the desired impact of a digitized Africa,” he said.
The BoG boss made these remarks at the 3i Africa Summit held at the Accra International Conference Centre.
The event seeks to generate greater momentum and traction for Africa’s digital finance agenda by causing finance, policy and technology to meet at the crossroads.
Addressing the gathering, Dr Addison reiterated that it is crucial that sufficient capital is directed towards startups to enable them to develop credible prototypes of home-grown solutions that address inefficiencies on the African continent.
“Without sufficient capital, brilliant ideas and the prototypes of fintech startup solutions with the potential to address diverse financial service needs fail to progress to production,” Dr Addision said.
Also present at the event was Finance Minster, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam.
In his view, “for Africa to realise our development ambitions, we must all collate around an African agenda that delivers capital by leveraging public-private partnerships, venture capital, impact investing, and donor funding.
“An agenda that delivers investments in digital infrastructure, extended mobile network coverage and established broadband networks for widespread fintech adoption and financial inclusion in underserved areas,” he added on Monday, May 13.
For the next three days, the participants will benefit from a multimodal forum for policy discussions, international intellectual resource alignment, entrepreneurial pursuits and investment networking.
This is expected to foster important conversations and also strategic alliances to nurture the flourishing African digital economy and fintech sector.