‘Payment failures threaten trust in fintech sector’

Africa's fintech industry is facing potential sustainability challenges due to the rapid expansion and the increasing demands placed on its payment infrastructure. Acting Managing Director/CEO of Belema Fintech, Michael Adesola, warned at the Nigerian Fintech Forum that the next phase of fintech development will depend on the resilience of the underlying infrastructure.

He argued that the sector is now facing unprecedented pressures from millions of users, higher transaction volumes, and more complex financial services. Adesola emphasized that payment failures are the biggest threat to trust in digital payments, as customers are only concerned with whether the payment actually occurred, regardless of the underlying issue.

He called for fintech companies and infrastructure providers to stress-test their systems, build redundancy into critical services, and enhance interoperability to ensure the stability of the financial system. Adesola stressed that reliability at the last mile should become a central measure of fintech success, noting that a beautiful interface cannot compensate for infrastructure that fails when customers need it most.

He argued that the ultimate test of any payment system is not whether a transaction is marked as successful, but whether the funds actually reach the intended recipient. For Belema Fintech, a licensed switching and processing institution in Nigeria, the key is delivering reliable, secure, and on-time digital finance services.