Safaricom showcases Kenya at Singapore Fintech festival

Safaricom has urged innovators at the Singapore Fintech festival to exploit opportunities in the Kenyan industry.

The company’s Chief Financial Officer Sitoyo Lopokoiyit said the country is ripe for businesses to develop digital solutions for Kenyans.

”At 83 per cent, Kenya is leading in share of mobile phone internet traffic overtaking Nigeria, which was at the top in 2017,” he told delegates at the Fintech festival in Singapore.

He further noted that these numbers have attracted huge investments in the Fintech industry which he estimates will cross the Ksh. 100billion mark by next year.

Mr. Sitoyo cited M-Pesa as one of the biggest successes adding that the platform revolutionized Kenya’s financial sector in the span of ten years.

He attributed the revolution to a ‘deep passion and commitment to transforming lives’ and efforts to ensure that every Kenyan gets to enjoy the benefits of mobile money growth.

The Singapore Fintech festival is an annual event that allows the over 60,000 delegates to compare notes on the Fintech industries in their countries.

Attendees include representatives of countries’ Central Banks, other banks and financial institutions, innovators and venture capitalists among others.

This year, Pula, a Kenyan micro-insurance company won an award at the conference for their efforts to providing agriculture insurance for small scale farmers, a service that the bigger corporates had avoided for years.

CBK Governor Patrick Njoroge, who was also present at the festival, announced that Kenya will be hosting the second Afro-Asia festival in July next year.