Local Context Matters: Why Localization is Key to Accelerating Financial Inclusion in Africa

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Many consider financial inclusion to be one key to reducing poverty and achieving inclusive economic growth in Africa and other emerging economies. Mobile technology has proven to be an inexpensive tool for broadening this access, by delivering a range of financial services to places where physical infrastructure is lacking. M-Pesa is a classic example: Before its launch in 2006, only about 26% of the adult population in Kenya had access to formal financial services. But 10 years later in 2016, the rate of formal financial inclusion in the country had increased to over 75% of the adult population.

However, despite this progress, financial inclusion efforts in Africa still face considerable challenges: For example, around 56% of adults in Nigeria were still unbanked as of last year. And the continent’s cultural diversity presents a key obstacle. Africa has several thousand ethnic groups, compared to Europe’s roughly 160 ethnicities. These numbers alone demonstrate the level of variety that technologists need to consider while developing products that are appropriate to the context of the markets they italy whatsapp number data serve.

To accelerate the success of mobile products for unbanked and underserved populations across the continent, providers will need to design innovative solutions to this challenge. And for that innovation to deliver financial inclusion, these products will need to embrace localization. In this context, localization refers to the adaptation of financial products and user engagement content to serve the specific cultural requirements of the African market. Below, I’ll discuss some of the ways African financial service providers can successfully embrace localization in their product design, and some pitfalls they must avoid.