A female entrepreneur in a thriving community in Kenya operates a small but steadily growing online jewellery store. With limited resources, she sells her handmade designs exclusively through Facebook, her sole social media platform. Her artistry has garnered a loyal customer base, yet her journey to scale the business is loaded with challenges.
Payment processing is a key issue, as many of her customers cannot access traditional banking systems. Financial constraints also prevent her from purchasing materials in bulk, while high shipping costs erode her profit margins. Although she dreams of expanding her enterprise, she feels stifled by the absence of accessible financial tools and services.
A few months later, her breakthrough comes when she discovers a transformative fintech application. This digital platform redefines her business operations. She begins to accept payments seamlessly from customers using mobile wallets, bypassing the bottlenecks of traditional banking. With access to microloans, she procures raw materials in bulk, significantly lowering her production costs. The platform also connects her with discounted logistics solutions, enabling her to ship her products affordably. Within six months, the impact was remarkable: her sales doubled, and her burgeoning enterprise created employment opportunities as she hired staff to meet growing demand.
This narrative is not an isolated success but a spotlight on the transformative power of fintech across Africa. By acknowledging and addressing the systemic barriers to financial inclusion for women, these solutions enable their enterprises to grow but also allow them to thrive in a dynamic and highly competitive marketplace. This is the promise of fintech—a catalyst for economic growth and innovation across the continent.
However, the question now is not whether fintech can support women and SMEs. Rather, it’s how much more it can achieve when these women and their startups are truly prioritised as the drivers of economic growth.
The Gap
Women-owned businesses across Africa are a powerful force, driving innovation and economic growth in their communities. Yet, their journeys are often faced with industry-related and cultural obstacles, thereby hindering their success. While these issues vary across regions, they reflect a shared struggle for African women in business. In this article, I’ve highlighted some of the key hurdles and practical solutions to foster a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem for women on the continent.
- Constrained Access to Capital
Obtaining adequate funds remains a formidable barrier for many African women entrepreneurs. In countries like Nigeria and Kenya, for instance, many financial institutions often require collateral or credit histories, which women frequently lack due to gendered economic disparities. As a result, many women rely on personal savings, which are insufficient for long-term business growth.
- Poor Networking Opportunities
Professional networks play a pivotal role in entrepreneurship. However, many women across Africa often find themselves excluded from these circles. This lack of connections translates into fewer opportunities for mentorship, partnerships, and market expansion. In this particular scenario, women who find themselves in this situation tend to struggle with finding an equilibrium between family and business duties.
- Managing Work-Life Dynamics
The dual burden of running a business while managing household responsibilities is a shared challenge for African women. Cultural expectations often place disproportionate caregiving duties on women, leaving little room for business growth.
To bridge this gap, African women can benefit from adopting time-management tools, outsourcing household tasks, and using flexible work solutions. Moreover, governments and organisations must also support women through policies like subsidised childcare and accessible parental leave. I’ll shed more light on this problem as we proceed.
(Source: Google)
- Gender Bias
A recent report by Stiftung shows that women make up just 22% of the global AI workforce — a glaring reminder of the deep gender imbalance in STEM fields and how it spills over into fintech leadership. The truth is, when women are absent from decision-making tables, the results are predictable. In fact, financial products and technologies often fail to address the very real challenges women face in accessing and using these tools.
This issue goes beyond mere representation. A survey by the International Center for Journalists (ICJF) revealed that 73% of women journalists have experienced online violence, ranging from harassment to threats of physical harm. This toxic environment doesn’t just silence individual voices; it discourages women from fully engaging in digital platforms, making it even harder to close the gender gap in technology and leadership.
Additional challenges encompass restricted market access, a lack of customer trust, insufficient capacity development, substandard product quality, inadequate access to information and communication technology (ICT), and weak integration into broader markets.
(Source: moniepoint.com)
These statistics don’t just highlight a problem. Rather, they shine a spotlight on missed opportunities. While this may sound like a sobering reality, it’s the truth. However, it is important to commit to promoting environments where women are not just present but also able to thrive and lead.
But despite these challenges, African women are not deterred. They had stepped into the fintech space with determination, creating solutions tailored to the realities they faced.
Take Temie Giwa-Tubosun’s LifeBank, for example. By integrating digital payments into healthcare logistics, LifeBank ensured that hospitals across Nigeria could procure life-saving supplies without the inefficiencies of cash-based systems. The innovation not only addressed logistical gaps but also empowered women-owned SMEs in the healthcare supply chain.
Even so, organisations like African Women in Fintech and Payments (AWFP) have been instrumental in mentoring and supporting women innovators. AWFP had built a network of female leaders who had understood that solving Africa’s financial exclusion problem required designing products through the lens of those most affected. This challenge may have been a continuum until fintech stepped in to rewrite the narrative.
The famous March 8, 2023, “DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality” brought one idea into focus. This theme was birthed to give fintech women a voice globally—a call to action. It was a deliberate attempt to make the world see how fintech could break barriers for women and SMEs in Africa, making financial inclusion a reality and creating a world where fintech can empower African women to access financial tools that can change their futures.
Although Africa’s fintech sector has already been booming, with companies like Flutterwave and M-Pesa making headlines, there is still an untapped market that can no longer be ignored—women and the SMEs they drive.
Thankfully, the finance and tech sectors have started to break these barriers. Platforms like M-Pesa and Flutterwave have demonstrated how digital innovation could empower underserved populations.
Today, M-Pesa has revolutionised financial access, particularly for women. With over 51 million active users in Kenya, M-Pesa has allowed women in rural areas to save (like the woman in the first example I shared at the beginning of this discussion), transfer money, and even access loans through their mobile phones. In retrospect, this has not only enabled financial inclusion but has also granted women greater financial independence. This advancement ties into the March 8 International Women’s Day theme, emphasising that technology is more than a means to an end.
What is the next step?
- Support Women-Led Fintech Startups: Nothing will go wrong if women are at the forefront of fintech innovation, creating tools tailored to their needs. From informal savings groups to microloans, women understand these challenges better than anyone. They deserve more than a seat at the table; they should be leading the charge. But instead, they face significant barriers to funding. It’s time to change that and invest in their potential. Research by the World Economic Forum has shown that women-led startups receive less than 2% of global venture capital funding. This inequity isn’t just unfair; it’s bad business. To this effect, a renowned financial institute like the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) predicts that if women are offered slots in the economy, they could add $28 trillion or 26% of annual global GDP by the end of 2025 — an amount greater than the size of the US economy today. There’s no better time than now for investors, governments, and development organisations to step up. That said, initiatives like the African Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) have already started bridging this funding gap, but the momentum must accelerate. Now, picture what the world could achieve if every woman with a brilliant fintech idea had the resources to bring it to life.
- Promote Digital Literacy: Access to fintech tools is useless without the knowledge to use them. Perhaps many of these women in rural and underserved areas are left behind, not because they lack potential but because they lack proper digital literacy. Partnerships between the public and private sectors can change this narrative. I’m talking about a collaboration between a fintech giant like M-Pesa, local governments, and NGOs delivering hands-on digital literacy training to these women. These programmes could teach women how to be money-smarter or even run small businesses entirely online. The ripple effects would be transformative, especially when empowered with digital literacy not only learn to use these fintech tools but also teach others, amplifying the impact.
- Stop Overwhelming Regulations for Startups: Innovation thrives when bureaucracy takes a back seat. Unfortunately, many fintech startups face high entry barriers, from complex licensing requirements to exorbitant fees. This disproportionately affects the smaller players’ enterprises, which women often lead. Frankly, the government and its regulatory bodies have a critical role to play in fostering this innovation by simplifying licensing processes, lowering capital requirements, and offering tax incentives for fintech startups that could unleash a wave of creativity. By strictly adhering to the regulations of a model known as the “regulatory sandbox,” a country like Nigeria automatically allows fintech innovators to test their products in a controlled environment without being bogged down by any regulatory red tape. The result? A surge in homegrown fintech solutions tailored to local needs. Imagine this model replicated across the continent, with women at the forefront.
Why This Matters
The impact of financial inclusion goes beyond individual lives. A financially empowered woman invests in her family, businesses, and communities at large, resulting in stronger economies, lower poverty rates, and a brighter future for everyone.
It’s no wonder fintech companies like Flutterwave and Carbon are making credit more accessible. They now understand that SMEs are the driving force of Africa’s economy. Carbon, for instance, uses data-driven models to offer loans without requiring collateral.
Investing in women-led fintech startups, promoting digital literacy, and simplifying regulations aren’t just policy suggestions; they’re imperatives for an inclusive, innovative, and equitable future. Women already represent an untapped wellspring of talent and ideas. It’s time to stop seeing them as beneficiaries and start recognising them as architects of Africa’s fintech revolution.
You and I can build a world where every woman with a dream of creating the next M-Pesa, Paystack, or Tala has the support she needs to succeed — it is possible. And interestingly, the rewards (both social and economic) are limitless.
About the Author:
Nelly Nneli is a seasoned Digital Sales Manager and the founder of Fintech Bytes, a platform dedicated to simplifying complex financial inclusion innovations. With a strong focus on payment technology and digital product sales, Nelly provides thought-provoking insights into how fintech can drive meaningful change and enhance financial access. Her work highlights practical strategies for fostering financial inclusion in an ever-evolving digital economy.