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Insights Centre
Sectors

Financial services

Who banks where, how fast money moves through phones and banks, what credit is growing and where finance is headed.

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Deals in the last 12 months34US$1.9bn where the value is confirmed · 95 tracked in all
Subsectors90 with trade data

What this page answers

  • Where can people bank, by district?
  • How fast are mobile money, credit and deposits growing?
  • Who is licensed, who is entering, and where is fintech money going?
  • Where are the strongest fintech and insurtech markets?

Mauritius leads SADC on accounts

Account ownership, % of adults, latest year for each country. Click a bar for that country's financial services page.

0%20%40%60%80%Mauritius89.6%South Africa81.1%Namibia72.9%Zambia72.7%Eswatini65.1%Lesotho61.6%Botswana61.4%Tanzania59.8%Mozambique54.4%Malawi50.4%Zimbabwe49.5%Comoros45.5%DRC39.2%Angola29.3% (2014)Madagascar24.5%median 59.8%

Source: World Bank·dotzedw Insights Centre

Subsectors

9 in this pillar

Banking

Tracks
Banks, assets, deposits, credit by industry, bad loans and capital, branch networks, new licences and exits, digital banks.
Signals ahead
Credit growth by industry, licence approvals, foreign bank exits.

Select a figure for its trend. Source: dotzedw deals tracker.

Open these deals in the deals tracker

More figures for this subsector are being added.

Who is moving

Open in the deals tracker

34 deals in the last 12 months across SADC, placed in subsectors by what they say.

Where the fintech opportunity is strongest in SADC

Each sector is sized in three layers: the addressable market, the part today's rails can serve, and the share a new entrant can win now. Every driver is either a sourced indicator or listed openly as a gap, so you can see what the ranking rests on and what it cannot yet see.

Fintech: Payments, digital banking, credit, savings and remittances. On the drivers we can measure, South Africa leads SADC with 79 out of 100, ahead of Namibia (70) and Botswana (69).

Fintech ranking

Scores run from 0 to 100 by rank within SADC; 100 is the strongest signal. Sort by any layer.

#Country
1South Africa79905293
2Namibia70586290
3Botswana69686573

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A signal of relative opportunity, not a market size estimate. 10 measured drivers, 5 gaps not yet scored. Latest values are used, whatever their year.

What drives each layer

Open any measured driver for its definition, source and the full regional picture.

Addressable market

How big the pool of potential customers is.

  • · SADC median 19.4m
  • · SADC median $2,539
  • · SADC median 41.2%
  • (proxy for mobile broadband) · SADC median 101

Serviceable market

How much of it today's rails can reach.

  • · SADC median 59.8%
  • · SADC median 46.6%
  • (cross-border flows to serve) · SADC median 1.4%
  • · SADC median 42.6%
Not yet measured
  • Value of electronic payments · source: Central bank national payment system reports (manual entry)
  • ICT sector share of GDP · source: National statistics offices (manual entry)

Obtainable share

How easy it is to win customers now.

  • (proxy for card and cash infrastructure) · SADC median 10.7
  • · SADC median 18.8%
Not yet measured
  • Point-of-sale terminals and transactions by channel · source: Central bank payment statistics
  • Cost of mobile data · source: ITU ICT Price Baskets or A4AI mobile broadband pricing
  • Venture capital raised · source: Paid deal feed (for example Briter Bridges or AVCA)

Where the opportunities sit

Payments and transfersDigital banking and neobanksLending and credit scoringSavings and micro-investmentsCross-border remittancesBuy now pay laterPoint-of-sale and merchant tools

Track live fintech activity in Deals and Projects. Each gap above closes as analysts add data through the admin or a paid source is switched on.

Sources and method