The Chief Executive Officer of AfricaNenda Foundation, Dr. Robert Ochola, has said that over 400 million Africans remain financially excluded despite growing mobile usage, fintech investment, and digital public infrastructure.
Ochola stated this during the opening of a high-level peer learning event co-hosted by AfricaNenda and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) in Lagos. The event brought together central banks, regulators, and payment operators from across the continent to explore ways to deepen financial inclusion through instant payment systems.
According to him, Africa must move beyond building digital infrastructure that only serves a privileged few and instead prioritize scalable, inclusive systems for the financially excluded.
Describing the current state of digital progress in Africa and the number of financially excluded people as a paradox, Ochola said:
“This contradiction is not only unsustainable but unacceptable. The real question is: can we build inclusive, scalable systems that serve every citizen, not just the privileged few?”
Ochola praised Nigeria’s NIBSS platform as a continental model for real-time, trusted, and inclusive payments infrastructure.
“NIBSS processes nearly a billion transactions monthly. It’s interoperable, secure, and available 24/7. This is the kind of system Africa needs, one that connects banks, fintechs, and switches with inclusive design at its core,” he said.
“Africa must build payment systems by Africans, for Africans. Free trade requires free movement and that includes seamless financial transactions,” Oiwoh said.
He highlighted NIBSS’s close relationship with the Central Bank of Nigeria as a model of successful collaboration and proposed the formation of an Africa Regulators Forum on Digital Payments.
This body, he said, would help harmonize standards, encourage knowledge sharing, and co-develop inclusive, secure systems across the continent.
Representing the Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability at the Central Bank of Nigeria, Phillip Ikeazor, the Director of Payments System Management at the CBN, Musa Jimoh, emphasized that the real competitor in Africa’s financial ecosystem is not other institutions but cash.
“Let’s rise above jurisdictional silos and work together as Africans,” he said.