African technology innovators at the forefront of change from fintech to agritech

African tech innovators at the recent Africa Money & Defi Summit in Accra, Ghana proved they are at the forefront of change on the continent, from fintech to agritech.

“Africa has the ability to leapfrog into Decentralized Finance (Defi) and iron out the difficulties of cross-border financing through blockchain and web3,” said attendee PayBox co-founder David Boye-Doku.

One of the recipients of the ITC NTF V programme, PayBox is a fast-growing African fintech start-up engine for cross-border mobile growth that provides easy access to offline and online digital payment and business solutions.

“Decentralizing finance in Africa will give everyone access and choice of alternative currencies; it offers financial and digital inclusion,” Boye-Doku said.

ITC, through its NTF V Tech project in Ghana, sponsored fintech start-ups PayBox, Motito, Pal and Makewehelp to exhibit at the West Africa Money and Defi event. Fintech leaders such as MFS Africa and Paystack and Web3-focused businesses Revio and Mazzuma also participated and shared their industry knowledge.

“It was amazing. We met a lot of Nigerians who were looking for products that worked with web2.0 and web3 blockchain. We explained what we are doing in web2.0 and what we have started for web3 and they were interested,” Boye-Doku said .

PayBox started its business journey by offering mobile payment solutions to small and medium-sized businesses.

“The next phase is to add web3 rails to mobile payments so that a local wallet can become an international wallet for small businesses and millennials in Africa. Your phone number can become a crypto wallet to send money easily across Africa,” said Boye-Doku .

Web3 wallets can be web-based, mobile-based, or even hardware-based. Their relatively simple user interaction gives the user access to decentralized blockchain-based apps that act as gateways to crypto-assets. This allows users to instantly send and receive these assets via mobile phone number, email or crypto address.

Boye-Doku believes the central bank’s digital currency (CBDC) is the key to the rapid development and growth of African economies. “It would allow capital to move freely at lightning speed with almost zero transaction fees and convert crypto into currencies. This means we can spend on our domains as well as trade with people who are not in our domains,” he said.

“We chatted with a representative from the Bank of Ghana and they are looking for a token that will sit on top of the Ghanaian CBDC. We are already building an exchange token for them to sit on,” he said.

ITC helped Paybox participate in the summit. “ITC has been amazing,” said Boye-Doku. “They play a key role in empowering start-ups, giving them access to information, training and a global presence.”

(With inputs from APO)