Talking about Africa, one mostly thinks about the abundant, breath-taking natural wonders and its diverse wildlife. Exploring the wilderness in places like Maasai Mara National Reserve and Serengeti National Park is on every travel aficionado’s bucket list. The continent seems more than overwhelming and pristine in that sense, especially considering the present-day scenario.

But on the contrary, while talking about its people, a picture of poverty-ridden, underprivileged and especially unbanked inhabitants who are even devoid of any form of financial service come to our minds. As per several reports, including the World Bank data, more than half of the population in Africa is unbanked, owing to reasons like lack of proper documents, no legal identity, credibility-oriented issues, limited access to information, other societal challenges, etc.

Despite the overpowering barriers, the last couple of years have witnessed a major upliftment in terms of the growing financial inclusion in the continent. Thanks to the growing number of fintech companies in Africa, more and more people now have access to financial services that is eventually leading to a better quality of life and more opportunities.

As per a report by Digest Africa Index, in 2018, $276.7 million of funding was raised by the fintech ventures across Africa.

The fund-raising figures by the African fintech ventures have only increased in the last few years. As per reports, these ventures raised close to $350 million during the first quarter of 2020. With $112m, $74m, $62m and $51m in investments raised by South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt respectively.

Moreover, fintech companies in Africa have further facilitated banks with their operations as banks are now able to provide digital banking services to the vast diverse population and fintech as an industry is seen as a catalyst for growth, innovation and financial inclusion in the continent.

Below mentioned are the top 5 FinTech companies that are taking over the African market:

1. Yoco- Founded in 2015, Yoco is one of the most prominent fintech companies that has assisted over 50,000 SMEs. It’s a South African creation that is known for its PoS software, that help SMEs in South Africa to enable payments in-store, online, and also on the go. The company has received $23 million in funding to date.

Its card machine called Yoco Go can be connected to a mobile phone that enables a street seller or even the small-time hawkers to avoid cash transactions as the payments can be made via mobile phones. This has completely changed the business dynamics as only around 10 percent of the South African SMEs accept card payments.

Further in 2018, the company launched Yoco Capital, a fast-funding service for small businesses to help them get quick cash advances for business related needs.

2. Jumo- Jumo, a full technology stack, has raised a total of $67.5 million in funding and has offered services to more than 7.5 million clients. It ties up with banks, mobile network operators (MNOs), and e-commerce companies to build and run financial services.

With its large-scale use of data science, Jumo has launched several savings and credit products. Not just that, it also assists individuals and businesses with different types of insurance.

Established in South Africa, this fintech company has now expanded to Ghana, Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda as well.

3. Cellulant- Cellulant with its one-stop digital payments platform has expanded to more than 30 African countries including Uganda, Zambia, Nigeria, Ghana, and Botswana.

Cellulant, a Kenyan fintech company, has been there since 2004 and has extensively tied up with a huge number of customers, business-oriented people, mobile network operators, and banks.

It provides the convenience of doing bill payments and money transfers from the comfort of homes or offices and customers can do a wide variety of things like pay for utilities, shop, acquire loans, track expenditure and many others.

Cellulant has processed close to 12% of all the digital payments in Africa. With investors like The Rise Fund, Velocity Capital Private Equity, and Satya Capital, the fintech company has raised a funding of about $54.5 million.

4. OPay- Founded by Opera in 2018, OPay has raised a staggering figure of $170 million in funding. Specifically designed for everyday users, it enables bill payments, mobile top-ups, P2P transactions, etc.

The best part about OPay is that it integrates a wide range of services on a single platform like wealth management, food and grocery delivery, hailing motorcycle rides, OMall (a B2C e-commerce app), OBus (for booking bus tickets) and many more.

In 2020, Opay acquired a license for international money transfer and also tied up with WorldRemit which enables people to receive money directly in their OPay wallets from more than 50 countries. Also, it claimed to have 5 million users in June 2020 along with processing over 60% of all mobile money transactions in Nigeria.

5. Flutterwave- With its API (Application programming interface) software, this African based fintech company enables both foreign and African sellers to serve customers all over Africa while processing payments like a local company.

Flutterwave enables payments in 150 currencies, thereby making life more convenient for both customers and businesses. Founded in 2016, its existing customers include Uber, Booking.com, Jumia and many others.

Apart from providing a payment gateway, using Flutterwave’s dashboard businesses can also set up their own online stores.

Flutterwave processed 107 million transactions in 2019 that accounted to $5.4 billion.