*A recent survey report indicates that FinTech is taking the top spot in most African countries, solving fundamental problems for consumers of financial products and services, in which novel technology solutions tend to be well-received and quickly adopted besides offering attractive returns for investors

Gbenga Kayode | ConsumerConnect

As African continues to integrate Financial Technology (FinTech) into several economies across the promising continent, Kenyan FinTechs accounted for 30.2 percent, or 93 out of the 308 tracked technology startups, a Disrupt Africa study recently found.

Besides, the survey findings indicated that the FinTech sub-sector alone accounted for 3,100 or 27 percent of the 11,462 people that were employed by tech startups during the same period.

How FinTechs are solving fundamental problems

According to the findings of a study on Kenya’s startup space, FinTech ventures alone accounted for just over 30 percent, or 93 out of the total 308 tracked startups.

The study also found this figure is almost three times more than that of the nearest challengers, namely Agritech and e-health, which both accounted for 10.1 percent of Kenya’s tech startups that were tracked between January and November last year.

However, as explained in Disrupt Africa’s study report on the Kenyan startup ecosystem, the dominance of FinTechs in the country’s financial system is not unusual.

The report further noted: “FinTech takes the top spot in most African countries as it solves fundamental problems for the populace as an area in which novel technology solutions tend to be well-received and quickly adopted, as well as offering attractive returns for investors.”

On remittances and lending

Aside from accounting for the largest share of tech startups, FinTechs also employed more workers (3,100) than other sub-sectors in the Kenyan economy.

Agritech and e-commerce are the only other tech sub-sectors that employed over a thousand workers in the North African country, said the report.

Meanwhile, as shown by the study’s breakdown of the FinTechs’ areas of focus, remittances (24%), as well as the lending and financing (21%) space, appear to be the more popular categories.

The study report as well stated part of the reason for this is that “these areas cover many of the most fundamental financial services that are still lacking for much of the population.”

Such categories, said the report, have been “the jumping-off point for FinTech ecosystems continent-wide.”

As regards the tech startups’ use of Blockchain, the study also discovered that 12 of the 30 Blockchain-based enterprises are FinTechs. E-health (6) and Agritech (5) are ranked second and third, respectively, report said.