‘Payment failures threaten trust in fintech sector’

Africa's fintech sector faces significant risks to its growth and public trust if the underlying infrastructure supporting digital transactions cannot reliably handle the increased demands, the Acting Managing Director/CEO of Belema Fintech, Michael Adesola, warned at the Nigerian Fintech Forum. Adesola called for a shift in focus from merely scaling user growth and transaction volumes to ensuring the resilience of the infrastructure that underpins the sector.

He emphasized that the rapid expansion of fintech across Africa is placing unprecedented stress on payment systems, which must now manage millions of users, higher transaction volumes and increasingly complex financial services. One of the greatest threats to confidence in digital payments, according to Adesola, is transaction failures, which customers often perceive as a single, overarching failure regardless of where the breakdown occurs within the payment chain.

Whether the issue arises at a bank, processor, switch or service provider, the end result is the same: a broken promise that erodes trust. To address this, Adesola stressed the need for fintech companies and infrastructure providers to rigorously test their systems, incorporate redundancy into critical services, and enhance interoperability throughout the financial ecosystem.

He also highlighted the importance of collaboration among industry players, suggesting that while competition is essential, cooperation is crucial for maintaining the stability of the broader financial system. Adesola argued that Africa's fintech sector cannot solely rely on the visible layer of mobile applications and digital interfaces.

Instead, the critical infrastructure - such as payment rails, processing platforms, switching infrastructure, identity services, APIs, cybersecurity systems, connectivity and redundancy mechanisms - must be robust enough to deliver on the promises made by fintech applications. For Belema Fintech, a Central Bank of Nigeria-licensed switching and processing institution serving financial institutions and fintech companies across Nigeria, Adesola emphasized that resilience, interoperability and security are foundational elements of payment infrastructure that should not be treated as optional features.

The ultimate measure of fintech success, he said, should not be the number of users or the sophistication of applications, but the consistent delivery of the fundamental promise of digital finance: that when a payment says it has been made, the money should actually move - reliably, securely, and on time.