Looking Back at 2025: A Year of Digital Momentum in African Financial Services
As 2025 draws to a close, it’s worth reflecting on what has been a remarkably active year for financial services in Africa. Digital transformation moved from aspiration to priority for many institutions, with tangible progress across multiple fronts. While visiting institutions throughout the year, I’ve observed shifts that suggest we’re entering a new phase of financial services development on the continent.
National Infrastructure: Leveling the Playing Field
Perhaps the most significant development I’ve witnessed this year is the proactive role regulatory institutions have taken in building national financial infrastructure. Across several African markets, central banks and regulatory authorities have established national platforms that democratize access to services previously available only to large banks.
Card switches, mobile wallet infrastructure, and payment gateways that were once the exclusive domain of major financial institutions are now accessible to smaller banks, microfinance institutions, and fintech companies through shared national platforms. This infrastructure-level intervention changes the competitive landscape fundamentally.
I’ve seen smaller institutions that previously couldn’t offer card services or mobile wallet integration suddenly able to provide these features to their clients. The economic barrier that once required massive individual investment has been lowered through shared infrastructure. More importantly, this creates standardization that benefits the entire ecosystem – clients can move money more easily across institutions, and interoperability becomes the norm rather than the exception.
This regulatory leadership represents a maturation of thinking about financial inclusion. Rather than leaving infrastructure development entirely to market forces, regulators are recognizing their role in creating the foundational layers that enable broader participation.
AI: Everywhere in Discussion, Nowhere in Production
If there’s one topic that dominated every conference, vendor presentation, and strategy discussion this year, it was artificial intelligence. Yet the gap between conversation and implementation remains vast.
The challenge isn’t the capability of AI technology itself – the tools are increasingly impressive. The challenge is integration. Most financial institutions operate on core systems and infrastructure that weren’t designed with AI integration in mind. Connecting AI capabilities to legacy systems, ensuring data quality and accessibility, and creating workflows that meaningfully leverage AI insights requires substantial technical work that vendors often underestimate.
Christophe Bretagnolle
Digitalization Expert
With more than 20 years of experience, supporting financial institution with their digitalization projects and strategies, Christophe Bretagnolle is a recognized expert of the banking sector in developing countries, particularly in Africa. His wide knowledge of the solutions and requirements for financial institutions to navigate the evolving and shifting digital landscape give him a unique and critical view of the present and future of information technologies within the development finance sector.
I’ve watched numerous institutions explore AI projects this year, only to discover that the “simple integration” promised by vendors requires months of data preparation, API development, and workflow redesign. The technology exists, but the plumbing to make it useful in production environments is still being built.
This doesn’t mean AI won’t transform financial services – it will. But the timeline is longer than the hype suggests. We’re in the infrastructure-building phase, not the transformation phase. Institutions that are realistically preparing their systems and data for eventual AI integration will be better positioned than those chasing immediate implementation of tools that aren’t yet ready for their environments.
The Rise of African Technology Solutions
One of the most encouraging trends I’ve observed this year is the growing confidence institutions have in locally developed technology solutions. African technology companies are increasingly winning competitive tenders against international vendors, and not just on price.
These local solutions offer advantages that international vendors struggle to match. They understand local regulatory requirements without needing extensive customization. They’re designed for infrastructure realities – intermittent connectivity, power challenges, mobile-first users. They provide support in local time zones and languages. And crucially, they’re often more economically accessible to the institutions that need them most.
I’ve worked with several institutions this year that made deliberate choices to partner with African technology providers, even when international alternatives were available. Their reasoning was pragmatic: better functional fit, more responsive support, and business models aligned with their growth trajectory.
This shift represents more than just vendor selection – it signals the maturation of African technology capability and the recognition that local solutions can compete on quality, not just cost.
Messaging as a Channel: From Experiment to Strategy
Throughout the year, I’ve seen chatbots and messaging platforms transition from interesting experiments to core strategic channels for customer engagement. As I discussed in an earlier article, this shift makes sense given how pervasive instant messaging has become in daily life across Africa.
The continued rise of affordable smartphones and improvements in mobile network coverage have accelerated this trend. WhatsApp, Telegram, and similar platforms aren’t just communication tools – they’re becoming service delivery channels that feel natural to clients because they’re already using these platforms constantly.
What’s particularly interesting is how this positions institutions for the next evolution of AI. As conversational AI improves, institutions that have already built robust chatbot channels will be able to transition smoothly to more sophisticated AI-powered interactions. The infrastructure and user familiarity will already be in place.
I’ve observed institutions serving clients who’ve never used a banking app become comfortable with financial services through messaging interfaces. The barrier to entry is lower, the learning curve is gentler, and the channel meets people where they already are.
What These Trends Tell Us
Looking at these developments together, a pattern emerges. The most meaningful progress this year hasn’t come from revolutionary breakthroughs but from steady infrastructure building, realistic technology adoption, and solutions designed for actual context rather than imagined markets.
National payment platforms succeed because they address real barriers to financial inclusion. Local technology solutions gain traction because they’re built for real operational conditions. Messaging channels work because they align with how people actually communicate. And AI remains mostly aspirational because the underlying integration work isn’t yet done.
This suggests that 2026 will likely continue this pattern of pragmatic progress. Institutions that focus on building solid foundations – reliable systems, clean data, practical integrations, user-friendly channels – will be better positioned than those chasing the latest hype.
Looking Ahead
As we move into 2026, the institutions that will thrive are those that balance ambition with realism. Yes, explore AI capabilities, but invest first in the data infrastructure and integration capabilities that will make AI useful. Yes, adopt new technologies, but choose solutions designed for your actual operational context. Yes, expand digital channels, but focus on channels your clients actually use. The digital transformation of African financial services is very much underway. But it’s happening through steady, practical progress rather than dramatic disruption. And that’s probably exactly how sustainable transformation should be happening.
Author: Christophe Bretagnolle
