MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita used his appearance at the 3i Africa Summit in Accra on Wednesday to map out a specific technology transition he believes will define Africa’s financial future: the move from Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)-based mobile money into a smartphone-driven digital finance ecosystem integrating credit, remittances, banking and emerging instruments including stablecoins.
Speaking in a virtual fireside chat on “The Future of Digital Finance in Emerging Markets,” Mupita positioned this as more than an incremental upgrade. “This is a structural shift from mobile money to full digital finance,” he said, describing it as a powerful driver of economic growth and inclusion across the continent.
The foundation he pointed to is substantial. Africa has already made significant progress through mobile money systems, with mobile money contributing to global transaction volumes estimated at approximately US$2 trillion, and telecom-led platforms playing a critical role in expanding access to financial services by lowering the cost of reaching underserved populations.
The next phase, Mupita argued, will be built on the rapid spread of smartphones across African markets. Replacing USSD interfaces with app-based platforms opens the door to more sophisticated services that basic mobile money cannot support: nano-lending, embedded banking, cross-border remittances and digital asset tools that require data connectivity and screen-based interfaces. Artificial intelligence (AI) sits at the centre of that evolution, he said, with applications in fraud detection, credit scoring and customer service that can compress development timelines and scale quickly.
However, Mupita was direct about what could slow or derail this trajectory. Regulatory uncertainty, he warned, will deter the long-term investment the sector needs. He called for policy frameworks that balance innovation with consumer protection, and flagged rising fraud and digital scams as threats requiring robust regulatory responses to maintain trust. Without clear rules, he argued, Africa’s digital finance ambitions will remain fragmented.
On cross-border payments, Mupita argued that Africa must move beyond fragmented national systems toward a fully integrated regional digital finance architecture that reduces friction in trade and currency exchange, pointing to institutions such as the African Export-Import Bank as key drivers already laying the foundation for more efficient cross-border payment systems.
The India comparison Mupita drew carried weight. India’s Unified Payments Interface transformed domestic commerce and financial inclusion at a scale and speed that few predicted, enabling smaller businesses and informal sector participants to access digital commerce. Africa, with a larger and younger population, faces higher barriers from infrastructure and regulatory fragmentation, but the underlying demographic and connectivity trends create a comparable opportunity if the ecosystem develops coherently.
The 3i Africa Summit, now in its third year, has moved through successive phases from unlocking Africa’s fintech potential in 2024 to advancing a one-Africa, one-market framework in 2025, with this year’s edition framed around structured implementation with AI, tokenisation, open banking and digital public infrastructure among the focal themes.
Mupita’s message fitted that framing. The foundational phase of mobile money is complete. The question that Africa’s digital finance sector now faces is whether the ecosystem can be scaled, integrated and governed well enough to deliver the economic transformation its growth suggests is possible.
