The African Financial Inclusion Mechanism (AFDI), created by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and its partners, was officially launched on June 12, 2019. The aim of AFDI is to enable the development and access to digital financial transactions in Africa.

The AfDB is funding this project with the goal of making digital financial tools accessible to hundreds of millions people in Africa.In fact, it has been estimated that only 43% of adults have a bank account in Africa. « Information technology is not enough to access mobile money, why are you going to use it? How can this access to the payment system facilitate your access to other services ? Mr. Pierre Guislain, Vice President of the African Development Bank and in charge of the private sector, considers that « electricity in the villages can be facilitated by a combination of digital monitoring of mobile payment and rental of equipment by power supply.”

Regarding funding, $100 millions was raised in the form of donations ; The Bank will finance $300 millions in ordinary capital debt by 2030. (Source : Africanews). According to Mr Uzodinma Iweala, CEO of the Africa Center in New York, « technological growth will clearly lead to economic growth » not to mention that « we should all be aware that technology is not the cure for everything.”

With this investment in innovation and digital, the AfDB hopes to bring economic growth to the African continent. Numerous collaborations have been set up with banks, mobile operators and ministries to make the project possible.

Link to the article and video:

https://en.africanews.com/2019/06/13/the-bad-lance-the-african-mechanism-of-financial-inclusion-numerical/

Written by Justine Mingot