From Mobile Money to Blockchain: The Future of Money in Africa, Explained | Fintech Friays

[00:00:00] I think what Binance is doing right now in Africa with Mobile Money is pretty fantastic. So now, you know, there is now that integration with Binance and Mobile Money where, you know, countries like Ghana and Uganda are able to kind of like get into that technology. And I think it kind of, you know, closes that gap between mobile money and cryptocurrency because I think I had a conversation with, you know, Yamdi, which is, you know, operations manager from Binance Africa. And she was just, you know, talking about how in terms of like,

[00:00:29] mobile money, I think, and cryptocurrency, you know, there's lots of similarities there. And I really feel that, you know, mobile money could transition on to just maybe purely, you know, crypto and blockchain and, you know, transactions or cross-border transactions can even be done a lot quicker and faster because of the nature of the blockchain. Yeah. And look, if you look at some of the, you know, the, you know, practical use cases, you've seen that people are leveraging,

[00:00:59] towards the blockchain technology. One of course is that, and, you know, touching both on the commercial viability and your, your regulatory environment. Transactions on the blockchain technology are immutable, right? Meaning that they can never be deleted. They'll always be there. So there'll always be a source of funds and a trail of funds to ensure that, you know, you know how regulators say they want to follow the money.

[00:01:20] You know, you've got the capability. Right? And really importantly, using the, you know, just the speed of the blockchain technology, it really enhances your payments capabilities. You know, it takes them to a new level. I think you're dealing with transactions here, literally cross-border taking place, you know, within seconds.

[00:01:38] And that's the ability of the very strong ability of, you know, blockchain technology. What we've done at Binance is that we've also, in driving and fostering that innovation, we've obviously got Binance Labs, which is our venture capital arm, which looks at partnering with fintech startups and creating various use cases using blockchain technology.

[00:01:59] So not merely focusing on our products, you know, but also driving the expansion of the, of the technology into other products and, you know, various use cases, because that's what we're all about. You know, we're all about spreading the word and attempting to really onboard as, you know, the, you know, your most, you know, your innovators and creating great, great solutions for our clients.

[00:02:19] What you've then got also very importantly are the incubation programs where we take on, you know, you know, you know, your smaller fintech entities and attempt to really, again, collaborate with them to create, you know, to create that, you know, those, you know, those client-centric solutions. But then most importantly, I think the, you know, what we really drive is education, consumer education, because there's no point in us speaking, again, you know, figuratively all of these great concepts.

[00:02:46] But if they, if we don't bring them home and teach people, educate people on, on the various use cases of crypto from a very elementary onboarding spot level to your more complex, you know, you know, your complex derivative type product, which is really great. People make a lot of money from that, but you know, there's no point if we don't teach people that. So what we've done is that we've also got Binance Academy, which is almost a repository of various learning systems.

[00:03:13] We've got articles, which we've published, contributed to, you know, practical, almost learning case studies for people to properly understand how it works. Because I think one of the biggest things we've observed across the continent is that when, if we want to drive financial inclusion, we need to ensure that people are at the right level of financial literacy. And, you know, and it's our responsive social responsibility as entities such as Binance to ensuring that we, you know, we drive that type of education.

[00:03:38] So people can really have a buy in and are able to trade, you know, legitimately and, you know, and, you know, more with the, from an appropriately type of informed way. And that's it. Yeah, no, that's very, very, very important. I think everyone having access to education. So, you know, helping, you know, to close that financial inclusion gap is really, really key.

[00:04:02] I think, you know, we can have all of the technology, the blockchain, the cryptocurrency there, but if people don't actually know how to use it and actually how to maximize it and all the different use cases, we're not really going to be able to drive Africa forward the way in which we can grow it forward.

[00:04:16] And I think it's more than just, and I'm glad you highlighted it because it's just more than just being able to, you know, make transactions and allowing the average African citizen to be, you know, to be banked or have better access to financial resources. But it's also being able to leverage these opportunities to kind of bring Africa out of poverty and to, you know, push Africa forward, I think is really, really important. And I'm really excited about Binance Labs and what Binance is doing, partly with some of these startups.

[00:04:46] I mean, there's so many startups out there that are leveraging blockchain technology really well, like Bitland, which uses it for, you know, land transactions. And then you've got AgriLedger, you know, which uses it for global food systems. And then you have Twiga, which is using it for groceries. So I think it's just clear that the opportunities are limitless.

[00:05:06] And, you know, I think it's really important as well that there are incubators and there's accelerators and there's education institutions such as yours to help push people forward and to help, you know, startups and entrepreneurs and innovators to, you know, really maximize the blockchain technology. I mean, it's fantastic what Messgarner is doing, IHOP in Kenya is doing, and Bongo Hive in Zambia is doing as well.