African financial technology (fintech) is defining the next chapter of global innovation, an expert in the area has said.
Saidou Kante, a young fintech expert and entrepreneur from Bamako, Mali, who said this, explained that so much was currently happening in African Fintech, including digital ID systems linked to payment platforms; AI-driven scoring models that understand informal income; and cross-border APIs connecting entire regions.
“Fintech is becoming Africa’s most powerful development infrastructure, a silent engine behind education, agriculture, and trade. What excites me most is the mindset shift.
Young developers from Abidjan to Nairobi no longer see themselves as “local start-ups.” They’re building with confidence, using open-source tools, and solving problems no one else in the world is equipped to understand,” he said.
Africa Fintech
Mr Kante was sharing his experiences as a young African Fintech expert, his thoughts on what the future holds for Fintech in Africa, the challenges and how they can be addressed.
Raised in Bamako, Mali, Mr Kante is a co-founder of a US-based Africa operating Fintech start-up known as Kalispot, that runs a proprietary infrastructure that enables access to services from banks, mobile money operators and Fintechs from one network.
He was one of the start-up exhibitors at the just-ended GITEX Global 2025, organised by the Dubai World Trade Centre in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Over 6,800 tech enterprises featured as exhibitors at the show, including 2,000 start-ups from 180 countries, alongside 1,200 investors.
He holds an MBA with specialisation in Project Management and has had extensive exposure to software entrainering, IT for finance and blockchain infrastructures.
Mr Kante mentioned visibility and trust as some of the gaps in Africa’s financial services, explaining that millions of Africans were financially active but invisible to the formal system, pointing out that they save, lend, invest and take risks daily, but because they did not fit into Western credit models, they were treated as unbanked, which he described as design failure.
On trust, he explained that many people had been excluded or disappointed by formal financial systems due to hidden fees and lack of transparency. Rebuilding that trust, he said, required designing systems that were human-centred, responsive and accessible.
He said the world had to stop seeing the underserved populations of the world as a problem to fix, but rather see them as innovators to learn from.
“In Senegal, Ghana, and across the continent, people already have complex systems of financial trust, such as tontines, community lending, informal credit. Fintech should digitise these social concepts, not erase them. That’s why at KaliSpot, in order to make financial inclusion a reality, one of the most important features we’re building into our system is the ability for our customers to place voice commands using local languages such as Wolof in Senegal, Bambara in Mali, or Darija in Morocco,” he said.
AI, open banking
On how he sees AI and open banking shaping the future of Fintech, Mr Kante said those technologies would redefine financial sovereignty, adding that AI would make financial systems more human.
Furthermore, he said it could make corruption visible and traceable, while open banking would push collaboration instead of competition and force banks, Fintech and regulators to work together and open their systems.
He advised young people interested in Fintech to start from pain, not from trend; be patient; collaborate and never forget that being African wasn’t a limitation but rather an advantage for them.
“You understand realities that others can’t model. That’s your edge. Build from it with pride. Fintech isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon between regulation, infrastructure and trust. builds alone. Share code, share knowledge, share networks. The more connected we are, the stronger our collective infrastructure becomes,” he advised.
