When it comes to the startup scene in Africa, fintech is the center of attention.

Over the past six years, the sector has been the most populous and most funded among tech startups on the continent, with players raised nearly $ 900 million over this period, according to Disrupt Africa, a website that tracks African startups.

Across the continent, fintech startups are disrupting traditional financial services by innovating and building digital systems and infrastructure. At first they did this by focusing their activities on specialist areas such as payment, loan insurance and investing, but now they are trying to expand by offering various services.

We look at three charts that show how funding in the sector has grown over the past six years, based on a new report from Disrupt Africa, which has been following African fintech startups since 2015 and has published reports every two years since then. Disrupt Africa defines fintech startups as those that disrupt traditional financial services and challenge incumbent service providers, and it focuses on startups with a fintech solution at the heart of their business. For this report, he followed 576 startups.

African fintech startups are leading the pack in attracting investment

In total, 277 fintech startups across the continent have raised around 900 million over the past six and a half years, more than double the amount raised by startups in other sectors. The amount raised has grown every year and in the first six months of this year it has doubled last year’s total in a development largely thanks to Flutterwave, an Africa-focused payments technology company, which raised $ 170 million earlier this year.

The overwhelming signs are that investors, especially in the era of COVID-19, still prefer to invest in more established fintech ecosystems.

Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya are the main beneficiaries of African fintech funding

Most funding from African fintech startups goes to companies in Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. Together, investments in fintech startups in these countries represent 87.9% of the total amount raised by companies in this field since 2015.

All three are the top funding destinations because they have the highest number of fintech startups – a total of 68% – and they have more developed ecosystems, Tom Jackson, co-founder of Disrupt Africa told Quartz. “[They are] Large markets, with track records, success stories and startups that have already risen, so investors feel more confident investing in these countries than elsewhere, ”he said.

While there are signs of growth in other markets as well, the report says, “the overwhelming signs are that investors, especially in the era of COVID-19, still prefer to invest in more established fintech ecosystems.” . Recent developments in Egypt could, however, lead to a rapid upheaval of these regional dynamics.

Most investments in African fintech have been in payments and remittances

Startups dealing with payments and remittances received the highest amount of investment. This is because it is the most established and populated category of the fintech space and it addresses “a huge fundamental problem” of how to pay and get paid affordably and fast, says Jackson. In addition, the payments and remittances space has large companies with a strong track record, and “investors like spaces that have a proven track record and have already attracted large investors,” he says.

Yet a new category is emerging, open banking, which Disrupt Africa is presenting for the first time. A system that is expected to disrupt the banking sectoropen bank allows the control of consumer bank accounts through third-party applications. For banks and other financial institutions, this allows them to expand their customer base while for startups, it creates a revenue sharing system where they can benefit from a subscription or a referral base from their apps. third parties.

This space is new and has few players. Disrupt Africa follows six, including Pngme from Nigeria and truID from South Africa. But with 1.8% of all fintech funding, this banking model has already raised more money than some older spaces. Open banking “is one to watch over the next two years, especially in Africa’s most developed fintech markets,” the report says.

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