Ghana Fintech: Lessons from the First Wave

Host: You've been in Ghana fintech since 2021. What does the landscape look like from the inside?

Emmanuel: The narrative from outside is "mobile money is exploding, Africa is leapfrogging." That's true. But the reality from inside is more nuanced. Mobile money penetration in Ghana is high, but transaction values are still low. The average person using M-Pesa or MoMo is sending five, ten dollars. Building a profitable business on 1% of five-dollar transactions is very hard.

Host: So what is the sustainable business?

Emmanuel: The sustainable business is the layer above the transaction — credit, insurance, savings products built on top of the mobile money rails. That's where Kupaa sits. We use mobile money transaction history as a credit proxy for people who have never had a bank account. We've built credit models on 18 months of mobile money data that outperform traditional bank credit scores in Ghana. The approval rate for first-time borrowers is 40% higher than any bank.

Host: What did the first wave of Ghana fintech get wrong?

Emmanuel: Too much capital chasing payment infrastructure that was already being built by the telcos and banks. Every second startup in Accra in 2020 was a payments company. The second wave is building on top of that infrastructure, not competing with it.