The Africa Fintech Summit has a core purpose to bring Fintech Changemakers together in a place where ideas are explored, investments mobilized and collaborations formed across sectors and geographies. Twice a year, we bring the issues, entrepreneurs, and opportunities revolutionizing finance in Africa to the world’s stage.
The Summit takes place in Washington, D.C., every April—in line with the spring meetings of the World Bank Group—and each November in a different African city,with our most recent summits being in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Lagos, Nigeria; and Cairo, Egypt. The 2022 Summit was held in Cape Town, South Africa – the first summit to be held in Southern Africa. The event, which was held in person and virtually using CVENT, attracted 671 attendees with 78% being in person attendees.
The AFTS is more than a conference—it’s an ecosystem building initiative, with bilateral meetings, collaborative partnerships, workshops,demos, pitch competitions, ecosystem tours, whitepapers, awards, and plenty of opportunities to collaborate with the investors and entrepreneurs shaping the future of African fintech.
As is tradition, the Cape Town Summit started with the VIP invite-only dinner on the 2nd of November, designated as a forum for our sponsors, partners, speakers, & delegates to network and relax over canapes and bubbly. This is the first place people wine down and make networks, before any serious talks.
The 3rd of November was the full day Summit which had an exhibition center for sponsors and partners that wanted to showcase their work. Partners also had an opportunity to set up meetings at their booths. Deliberately, we had set up our coffee and refreshments stations in the exhibitor area to ensure that our partners had visibility through out the networking breaks of the summit.
The summit was started with a Keynote Address by Lyle Horsley, the Divisional Head of the Fintech Unit and Chairperson of the South African Reserve Bank. This was followed by 15 panels with thought leaders from across the Fintech Summit with a special panel dedicated for Francophone Africa. The panels were transitioned with networking breaks in between to ensure that speakers and delegates could connect and arrange meetings.
When the panels were done, the day ended with 3 After parties to encourage further conversations. The first was a Happy Hour at the Summit Venue sponsored by BDO. Concurrently, AWS had sponsored a Champagne and Cruise networking for Women Founders. Lastly, QED sponsored an Investor Meet and Greet Cocktail which was scheduled for after the first two events.
The final day of the event began with delegates being taken on an ecosystem tour to encourage investment in the city. The companies visited were The Delta, BDO, Westgro, The Cape Town Stock Exchange and Algorand – UCT’s Financial Innovation Hub. It ended with the Alpha Expo Pitch competition that saw 14 companies pitch to investors. The winner was Chapa – which means “money” in the Ethiopian youth slang language. Chapa allows you to accept money from anywhere in the world without worrying.
The summit ended with a happy hour after the pitch event for one final networking session.
A success highlight – Two of our partners’ representatives – Team Apt and Ecobank – our banking sponsor – were able to set up a meeting and have it during the duration of the summit. We hope to see the fruits of that meeting. This is why we do what we do.
Our partners got value throughout the event. Our next Africa Fintech Summit is in Washington DC in April, 2023. Here partners would get to meet during the spring break meetings of the World Bank which allows a lot of key industry shakers to be in the city and for collaborations to be met.
Get in touch with me if you would like to partner with us for our next summit. Click here for my Linkedin and here is how you can set up a meeting with me that is at a time of your convenience
Partnerships Manager
Africa Fintech Summit
