# African fintech's second wave: from payments to credit > The money, the models, and the mission of African fintech are all shifting at once: away from growth-at-all-costs payment apps and toward credit, infrastructure, and sustainable economics. Author: Tim Humphreys Regions: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda Published: 2026-07-04T13:00:00.000Z Updated: 2026-07-04T13:00:00.000Z Canonical: /business/african-fintech-second-wave-credit ## Why it matters The first wave of fintech got Africans paying digitally. The second decides whether that rail starts financing businesses, farms, and lives, which is where the real economic change happens. ## Story African fintech is entering a second wave: a shift away from basic payment apps and toward credit, business infrastructure, embedded finance, and more sustainable economics. The framing comes from Boston Consulting Group's report Beyond Payments: Unlocking Africa's Second FinTech Wave, and the funding data from TechCabal Insights tells the same story from the money side. Start with the scale of what is at stake. BCG projects African fintech revenues rising to about 65 billion US dollars by 2030, making Africa the fastest-growing fintech market globally. The composition is changing too. Payments built the first wave, but BCG argues that lending, savings, insurance, and B2B financial infrastructure are where the next wave of value is likely to come from. In plain English, the first wave solved how people move money. The second asks whether that money movement can help people and businesses access credit, working capital, insurance, savings, and better trade rails. The funding numbers show the pivot underway. TechCabal Insights tracked 711 million US dollars in African startup funding in the first quarter of 2026, with fintech still among the strongest sectors. Across the first half of the year, debt and hybrid financing kept gaining importance because many fintechs are now funding loan books and cash-flow businesses, not just user-acquisition campaigns. That matters because venture money for yet another wallet app has cooled. The giants of the first wave, including M-Pesa and MTN MoMo, are now institutional fixtures. They are no longer easy targets for a startup that wants to win by discounting transfers and buying users. The second-wave builders are chasing harder problems: cross-border payment costs, SME credit, merchant infrastructure, open banking, agent networks, and the financial tools that sit behind everyday trade. Those are less glamorous than a new app icon, but they can be more useful. There is a sobering layer under the optimism. Consolidation, acquisitions, and layoffs are filtering out weaker players, a shift we explain in /business/african-fintech-mergers-acquisitions-consolidation. The businesses that survive will need stronger unit economics, cleaner compliance, and a clearer answer to how they make money. You can see the second wave from different angles across the continent: Tanzania's supervised sandbox at /business/bank-of-tanzania-sandbox-third-cohort, Nigeria's stablecoin trade workaround at /business/stablecoins-nigeria-cross-border-trade, and Africa's linked-exchange push at /business/aelp-phase-2-african-exchanges-linked. For readers in Kenya, the practical translation is this: the next wave of fintech will show up less as new apps to download and more as credit you can actually access through your till, stock financing, chama, wallet, or supplier relationship. That is quieter than the mobile-money revolution. It may end up mattering more. ## FAQ ### What is African fintech's second wave? It is the shift from basic payment apps toward credit, savings, insurance, embedded finance, and B2B financial infrastructure. ### Why is debt financing growing in African fintech? Many fintechs are becoming lenders and infrastructure businesses with loan books and predictable cash flows, so debt can fund activity without diluting ownership. ### Why does this matter beyond startups? If the second wave works, mobile-money and payment rails can start financing real businesses, farms, households, and cross-border trade. ## Sources - [BCG: Beyond Payments, Unlocking Africa's Second FinTech Wave](https://www.bcg.com/publications/2026/beyond-payments-unlocking-africas-second-fintech-wave) - [TechCabal Insights: African startups raised over $700M in Q1 2026](https://insights.techcabal.com/over-700m-raised-in-q1-2026/) - [TechCabal Insights: African tech funding H1 2026](https://insights.techcabal.com/1-44-billion-raised-in-the-first-half-of-2026/) The EV-style tipping point for African fintech will not be another shiny wallet. It will be useful credit on rails people already trust.