In Africa we like to think we are at the forefront of mobile money. Afterall, M-Pesa was developed in Kenya and Jumo was founded in Cape Town. The success stories here have attracted attention worldwide and there continues to be innovation in the mobile money space. But, I think that we’re no longer leading the the pack. China has clearly taken the lead in payments and mobile money applications. The battle between Tencent and Alibaba has created some amazing companies.
Ant Finacial, an offshoot of Alibab, is itself a multi-billion dollar company, which now runs a payment company called Alipay. Alipay is integrated with a wide spectrum of financial services, such as money market investment (YuEBao), insurance service (ZhongAn), credit rating (Sesame Credit), personal credit line (Ant Micro Loan), as well as SMB banking (MYbank).
WeChat was a messaging product under Tencent but is now a massive ecosystem for brands, media, and payments. They support hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transactions and content. Global brands manage their stores over the WeChat app. It’s absolutely huge.
The companies in Africa that are trying this stuff are way behind Tencent and Alibaba not only in valuation but innovation, resources and execution. If you want to know more about these two giants read this article.
If companies in the African continent want to catch up, they need global aspirations. That’s the best way forward.