Africa’s economic future will not be built by factories alone. Africa fintech and infrastructure are increasingly emerging as the connective tissue that can bind fragmented national markets into a single, competitive economic space capable of sustaining long-term growth.
At the Bloomberg Africa Business Summit in Johannesburg, leaders from banking, trade, capital markets and industry highlighted how digital finance, transport corridors, energy systems and data infrastructure are now central to the continent’s growth strategy. Together, these systems are shaping how goods, capital and ideas move across borders.
Africa fintech and infrastructure development are key to economic growth
Across Africa, millions of people still rely on cash to conduct cross-border trade. Small traders, many of them women, routinely carry physical cash across borders to buy and sell goods, exposing them to security risks, high transaction costs and exclusion from formal financial systems.
Wamkele Mene, Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), alongside Ecobank executives, said this reality presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Fintech solutions can formalise informal trade, reduce costs, improve transparency and expand financial inclusion.
Between 2021 and 2024, the share of adults making electronic payments to businesses rose to 20%, illustrating how quickly behaviour can shift when accessible digital tools are available.
According to McKinsey, Africa’s fintech revenues could reach $47 billion by 2028, up from $10 billion in 2023. Payments, digital lending, remittances and digital identity systems are expected to drive this growth, positioning fintech as core economic infrastructure rather than a peripheral innovation.
While digital finance enables transactions, it cannot move physical goods. Hard infrastructure remains one of Africa’s most persistent economic bottlenecks.
Transport and logistics costs across the continent are among the highest globally. Poor road networks, incompatible rail systems and congested ports inflate prices, weaken competitiveness and discourage manufacturing investment.
Jeremy Awori, Group CEO of Ecobank, noted that even differences in rail gauge standards across countries prevent networks from connecting efficiently. Harmonising transport systems would significantly reduce delays and costs for exporters and manufacturers.
The AfCFTA estimates Africa’s infrastructure financing gap at between $120 billion and $150 billion annually. Closing this gap would unlock regional supply chains, attract investment and strengthen Africa’s position in global trade.
Infrastructure investment rarely benefits just one country. In energy, regional spillover effects are especially pronounced.
In Southern Africa, improvements in electricity generation and transmission in one market can stabilise supply across interconnected grids. Executives at the summit pointed to reforms in South Africa’s electricity sector, which could strengthen the Southern African Power Pool, lowering energy costs for industries across borders.
Large-scale energy projects often exceed the capacity of individual national balance sheets. As a result, regional cooperation, blended finance and development finance institutions are becoming increasingly critical to delivering energy security at scale.
Integrated financial markets are another pillar of Africa fintech and infrastructure development. Deeper, more connected capital markets allow savings to be channelled into productive investment across borders.
South Africa experienced strong bond inflows in 2025, significantly boosting market capitalisation. Leila Fourie, CEO of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, said intra-African trade and cross-border investment would continue to lift GDP, particularly in manufacturing, resources and export-oriented sectors.
Daniel Mminele, Chair of Nedbank, added that regulatory reforms and public-private cooperation are improving investor confidence. Extending this coordination regionally could unlock cheaper financing for infrastructure projects across the continent.
Beyond fintech, artificial intelligence is emerging as a powerful tool for overcoming Africa’s market fragmentation. Rather than building expensive foundational models, African firms are increasingly using open-source AI to develop locally relevant solutions.
Lexi Novitske of Norrsken22 explained that AI can help companies scale across borders by navigating language differences, regulatory complexity and consumer behaviour more efficiently. It also allows African businesses to generate unique datasets of global value, thereby shifting the continent from a data consumer to a data producer.
Africa’s core challenge is not a lack of opportunity, but a lack of connection. Roads that end at borders, payment systems that do not interoperate, and regulations that clash across jurisdictions all add friction to economic activity.
The AfCFTA provides the legal foundation for integration. What remains is execution: interoperable digital systems, coordinated infrastructure investment and regulatory alignment across countries.
As leaders at the Bloomberg Africa Business Summit emphasised, Africa’s growth will accelerate not when countries act in isolation, but when markets begin to flow together, digitally, physically and financially.
