Gitex Africa 2025

Monday, April 14, 2025

Theme:

«Forecasting for the Road Ahead »

Keynote by Mr. Abderrahim Bouazza

Director General of Bank Al-Maghrib

Welcome to this 3rd edition of “Future of Finance.” It is a real pleasure for me to address
an audience that brings together so many key players from the fintech ecosystem, making
this gathering a remarkable opportunity to explore how finance, combined with the power
of digital technologies, can contribute to advance financial and economic inclusion across
our continent.

Today's discussion is not about the future of finance that feels unsettling, as we have seen
in recent days with commercial policy shifts triggered by geopolitical and economic factors.
Instead, we are discussing finance that seizes the opportunities of innovation to implement
solutions that enable the digital transformation of financial services and improve their
accessibility and use by underserved or unserved African populations, particularly small
businesses operating in the informal economy.
Undoubtedly, we cannot overlook the impact of geopolitics and the significant uncertainties
of the international environment on the development of financial technology in Africa.

In terms of funding, it is important to highlight that Africa has become one of the fastest-
growing fintech markets, with the number of fintech companies tripling over the past five
years, surpassing the number of traditional banks.

However, we’ve seen a slowdown in fintech funding in recent years due to tighter global
financing conditions—affecting FDI flows more generally.

Furthermore, in a context where the global economic policy uncertainty index is

To address this challenge, it is crucial to accelerate the integration of African economies to

In terms of new technologies, they are increasingly shaped by geopolitics, with a few
dominant companies controlling much of the field. These new technologies are no longer
just about competitiveness—they are now matters of sovereignty.

The continent must therefore start preparing to reduce its dependency, particularly in the
financial services sector. In this respect, the draft regulatory framework for financial
services within the African Continental Free Trade Area, currently under review, is a unique
opportunity to lay the foundations for resilient policies to control and secure critical digital
infrastructure across the zone.

Despite these headwinds, the outlook for African’s fintech industry is promising,
considering the untapped growth potential that could be unlocked by prioritizing three key
challenges specific to the region's economies:
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The first challenge concerns adapting and easing fintech regulation:

A critical lever for the industry's growth, as shown by certain experiences, particularly M-
Pesa in Kenya and Wave in Senegal, both of which have significantly boosted the number
of mobile money accounts and accelerated the development of digital financial services.

This is also the case in Morocco, where the opening of the banking market to non-banking
players since 2017 has been a major driver of financial inclusion for millions of people,
particularly those benefiting from government social aid program.

However, fragmented regulation across the continent still hampers fintech growth. Today,
fintechs operating in multiple countries of the continent must obtain separate licenses and
comply with heterogeneous national regulations—leading to additional costs, slower
regional expansion, and hindered innovation.

The recent initiative by the central banks of Rwanda and Ghana to endorse the single license
principle for fintech, and the introduction of sandboxes in several countries, send a strong
signal a for regulatory harmonization and flexibility.

The second one concerns laying down infrastructure needed to scale up the
adoption of digital services:

This includes addressing the lack of electricity for 800 million people (according to the
African Development Bank), and issues with digital identity and internet connectivity.
While mobile coverage has reached 80 percent of the population, actual internet use is still
limited to 30 percent.
Digital platforms and real-time payment systems are also essential accelerators of digital
transformation, as demonstrated by experiences in various regions of the world. In Africa,
only four countries have adopted real-time payment systems: Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania,
and Morocco.

The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), which currently includes 14
African countries, should be a strategic priority. It will help establish real-time, interoperable
payment systems continent-wide, easing cross-border transactions at lower costs—
especially since a large portion of these transfers still go through informal channels.

The 3rd challenge is rising competition in the fintech industry:

African fintechs are increasingly contributing to the digital transformation of the financial
services sector, proving more effective where traditional banking intermediation has failed
to meet the population’s needs.

In response to this evolution, traditional African banks are speeding up the digitization of
their services in order to retain their customer and attract younger population that is
enthusiastic about financial technologies.

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Meanwhile, both African fintechs and traditional banks face growing competition from
neo-banks, big tech companies, and foreign fintechs.
In this fast-evolving and competitive landscape, fintechs must rise to the challenge of
scaling up, diversifying their products, and adapting to market needs.
Changing business models may require strategic partnerships to meet new investment
needs, notably to develop sufficient capabilities to manage increasingly complex risks and
to comply with regulatory requirements.
The continent's financial services and fintech industry also face challenges
common to many other countries. These include the global competition for talent,
which is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit, and the rise in fraud, financial crime
and cyber-attacks. These risks, exacerbated by AI, are increasingly threatening data
protection systems and market integrity.
As digital adoption continues to grow, driven by a young and tech-savvy population
showing no signs of slowing down, governments, educational and academic institutions,
and central banks must coordinate efforts to strengthen awareness campaigns, enhance
financial and digital literacy programs, and promote research in financial innovation.

Before concluding, allow me to emphasize: we have no choice but to unite the efforts of
public and private actors—at both national and regional levels—to create the right
conditions for the ongoing digital transformation of financial services and to address the
challenges that come with it.
This vision is reflected in various national initiatives, such as Morocco’s Digital Strategy
2030, the recent launch of the Morocco Fintech Center by financial regulators, in
partnership with both public and private stakeholders, as well as the creation of a $10
million Fintech Fund by Bank Al-Maghrib
Thank you, and I wish you all an excellent GITEX Africa 2025, full of ideas,
collaboration, and opportunities.