Speaking on a panel at the 3i Africa Summit 2026 in Accra on Thursday, Chief Executive Officer of Mobile Money Fintech Limited (MMFL), Haruna Shaibu, urged industry players to pursue what he described as “digital leapfrogging” built on interoperability, shared infrastructure and customer-focused innovation.

Speaking on the topic “From platforms to systems: building foundations, scaling Africa’s Digital Finance Economy,” he said Africa’s digital finance future will not be shaped by isolated platforms, but by systems that work together seamlessly across borders and institutions.

“Leapfrogging is very simple, you can look at it as either growing exponentially or growing incrementally. And oftentimes, when a new technology is introduced, everybody jumps on it. We all end up doing the very same things.”

He warned that while digital finance has expanded rapidly across the continent, much of the progress has come through duplication rather than transformation.

According to him, this approach limits impact and slows down real financial inclusion.

He drew a comparison with the early internet era to explain the problem.

“I recall many years ago when the internet explosion came about, everybody suddenly wanted to have an internet café. We built internet café businesses that were cannibalising each other,” he said.

According to him, Africa must now shift from fragmented innovation to deliberate system design that enables scale.

Building “big pipes” for digital finance

He used infrastructure as an analogy to explain how digital finance systems should be built.

“When you are building a road network, you ask yourself: do you build the main artery first, and then connect the feeders into the artery?” he said.

He argued that digital finance requires the same thinking.

“We should be deliberate about building the bigger rails and connecting them so that we create a whole ecosystem that supports acceleration,” he said.

He stressed that interoperability remains the foundation of this system, especially in mobile money and payments.

“You want to be able to create that big pipe which connects to another big pipe, which is the interoperable layer,” he said. “So that system to system can connect and seamlessly transact.”

He noted that regulators and industry players have already made progress in building core infrastructure. The next step, he said, is scaling those systems across markets and platforms.

“We’ve built those foundational big pipes. Now how do we layer on and scale?” he said.

Shift focus to the customer

Mr Shaibu cautioned against excessive focus on building competing platforms instead of strengthening connectivity.

“Sometimes it almost feels like everybody wants to build one thing, and we end up crowding out in one area. The bigger opportunity is how we connect,” he noted.

He said the true value of digital financial systems is not in the number of platforms created, but in their reliability, cost efficiency and ability to serve users.

“At that level, what matters most is resilience and ensuring that the system is always available, and at a lower cost to the end customer,” he said.

He added that innovation must move closer to the customer experience.

“So the focus for us should shift from the big pipes into how we are serving the customer. That is where the biggest innovation should be,” he added.

Data, the new financial currency

Furthermore, he emphasised the importance of data in digital finance, describing it as the new driver of competitiveness.

“Data is not far-fetched in terms of its importance. For credit scoring, it is a very powerful tool which helps you underwrite a facility.”

He explained that financial institutions are now competing on how well they can capture and use customer data.

“The next big business is who is able to capture enough data points and build a data footprint of your customer and be able to serve them better,” he said.

He said data is already being used in customer management, fraud detection and building trust in digital ecosystems.

Fraud detection systems

The MMFL CEO said fraud detection is also evolving, moving away from rigid rule-based systems to more advanced behavioural models.

“We are moving from a rule-based fraud detection mechanism to more behavioural-based systems,” he said. “How best you use the data points you have to predict fraud behaviour and prevent it.”

He said this shift allows financial institutions to stop fraud before it happens.

“There is a lot of work we do behind the scenes in stopping fraud from manifesting,” he noted.

AI opportunities

He also pointed to reforms by the Bank of Ghana on open banking as a major step forward for the industry.

“Bank of Ghana has come up with a lot of reforms around open banking. This will present opportunities.”

He urged industry players to embrace openness, even when it creates short-term challenges.

“If you want to build that big pipe, you have to be very open to accommodate and assess. There may be some commercially not too interesting things that may happen to you, but you have to think positively about the broader banking system.”

On artificial intelligence, he said its full potential in financial services is still ahead.

“The best use case for AI is yet to come. We have to adapt to new insights and use it in a safe way.”

Calls for deeper reforms

Co-panelists also called for deeper reforms to strengthen Africa’s digital finance ecosystem and reduce structural barriers to growth.

Dare Okoudjou said mobile money remains the foundation of financial inclusion, noting that for many Africans, it is their first experience with a financial institution.

“We should be proud of what has been built, but it must now be scaled,” he said, while urging a shift towards a single continental licensing regime to replace fragmented national regulations, warning that duplication raises costs and slows expansion.

On the high cost of credit across the continent, Paul Whelpton and Olugbenga Agboola emphasised persistent inefficiencies in pricing and access, pointing to the need for stronger systems, better risk assessment, and improved use of digital infrastructure to drive down borrowing costs and widen access to finance.