Kenya led with largest number of bank accounts of 42million in 2019 – Agnes Gathaiya

Kenya played a leading role in the democratization of payments in Africa with the successful implementation of M-pesa and other instant payment schemes, and the attainment of the largest number of bank accounts of 42million in 2019.

This was disclosed recently by one of the panellists, Agnes Gathaiya (CEO, IPSL, Kenya), at the Africa Tech Leaders’ Series hosted by Digital Jewel, Nigeria.

While speaking at the webinar with the theme: COVID-19 Pandemic: The FinTech Outlook: How Will The Payments Landscape Evolve?“, Agnes Gathaiya provided an incisive perspective on how the East African community is being shaped by emerging payments trends.

She shared in the optimism of the earlier speakers on the bright outlook for Fintechs, especially for those with minimum viable products on the maturity path as the pandemic provided a unique opportunity to force adoption by slow adopters.

She stated that the growing shifts towards digital channels and the future of work (remote) will be to the benefit of the Fintechs who are wired to be resilient.

While drawing an analogy on ‘payments’ as the blood that flows through the human body, with ‘cash’ as the transmission route, she revealed that only 10% of the total transactions in the entire ecosystem in Kenya go through the digital channel.

She further enumerated the number of measures taken in Kenya to cushion the impact of the lockdown to include: zero-rating by the mobile network operators on transactions less than 1,000 Kenyan shillings, zero-rating on M-pesa transactions for three months.

In terms of observed patterns, she confirmed that some of the key sectors that got a hit (adversely impacted) during the crisis are the Hospitality, Agriculture and Manufacturing industries. An interesting pattern observed was the shift by some auto manufacturers into the production of ventilators.

She concurred with the submissions of the earlier speakers with respect to the post-crisis trends to include an increase in the demand for e-commerce and logistics, increased demand for instant payments and mobile channels, increased user account activity and increased mobile wallet limits.

In conclusion, she asserted that a secure, affordable and easy to use solution, with an easy and seamless onboarding process holds the ace for the continued stability of the payments system in Africa.