F-Squared Podcast

Absa's Pan-African ambition raises a question about where the bank's next ideas, products and leaders will come from. After nineteen years at NCBA, Eric Muriuki, Absa's Managing Executive for Pan-African Growth Strategy, Platforms and Digital Ventures, joins Samora Kariuki to discuss his personal transition and a platform strategy that connects banking with other businesses. From a shopping mall's shared infrastructure to the cultural reach of Afrobeats, he explains how learning across African markets, understanding a young population and attracting creative talent could help African teams build for global audiences.

M-Pesa built mobile money's distribution advantage, but Vodacom's next growth phase depends on far more than cash-in and cash-out. Epimack Mbeteni, Chief Commercial Officer of Vodacom Fintech Group, explains how shared platforms, local execution and sector-specific products support a 103 million-customer business—and why Vodacom wants core and non-core fintech revenue to reach a 50/50 split by 2030. The conversation covers M-Pesa's two failed launches in South Africa, the super-app reset, the Safaricom shareholding change and whether innovation can defend the lead that distribution created.

Kenya has broad financial access and a rapidly expanding digital-credit market, yet only a small minority of adults are financially healthy. Kevin Mutiso, Chairman of the Digital Financial Services Association of Kenya, explains how 2022 regulation unlocked capital, larger loan sizes and specialist lending for traders and boda-boda operators. Samora and Kevin examine the long tail beyond Fuliza and M-Shwari, the data-sharing challenge behind over-indebtedness, and whether digital lenders can help borrowers graduate from short-term liquidity to growth capital.

In 2009, Tayo Oviosu printed a 300-page regulatory application, packed it into a suitcase, and carried it to Abuja because Nigeria had no framework for mobile payments and someone had to ask the Central Bank to write one. Seventeen years later, the lesson he draws is the one most fintech founders still resist: you cannot bank a billion people by building a bank. You bank them by building the infrastructure other people build on.Tayo is the founder and CEO of Paga, one of Nigeria's earliest and most enduring fintech companies, founded when M-Pesa was barely two years old. This conversation is a masterclass in strategic discipline; what Paga chose not to build, and why that restraint is the reason it is still standing.We get into the real economics of agent banking (why roughly 80% of Nigerian agent transactions are cash withdrawals, and what that does to financial-inclusion timelines), why Paga stayed out of the card-gateway war when Paystack and Flutterwave emerged, the AWS/Netflix analogy behind Paga Engine, the Doroki thesis that African retailers need an operating system before they can be banked, and Paga's move into US rails. Through naira devaluations, funding droughts, and the rise of OPay and PalmPay, Paga stayed solvent and stayed focused.Chapters00:00 - Introduction10:00 - The suitcase of binders: cold-calling the CBN in 200924:00 - Why Paga stayed out of the card-gateway market33:00 - The 20-year business: real economics of agent banking40:00 -  "You cannot bank a billion people by building a bank" — the Paga Engine thesis44:00 - The Doroki thesis: an operating system for African retailers47:00 - US rails and hosted dollar accounts (Swift, ACH, Fedwire)51:00 - Three hours to twelve seconds: reconciliation with Claude CodePinned quote "Revenue is vanity; gross profit pays the bills. We taught our team that everyone acts like an owner and negotiates the best deal for everything, from marketing to supplies." - Tayo OviosuConnect with Tayo & Paga Tayo Oviosu (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/oviosu/ Paga:https://www.mypaga.com/ Doroki: https://doroki.com/

African traders earn in Europe and pay in China. Stablecoins are finally solving that triangular liquidity gap — and reshaping how Africa-Asia trade finance works.April Long spent thirteen years inside corridor banking — Standard Chartered, Gulf African Bank, and the Africa-Asia fintech ecosystem. She watched the cost of stablecoin liquidity fall from unworkable to roughly 50 basis points round-trip. This episode is her structural explanation of why that shift matters more than most people in African trade finance currently understand.“Money needs to flow in a triangular structure — receiving from Europe, paying to China. Africa lacks a financial hub where money can flow in and out freely. Consequently, money is forced to find fragmented, inefficient ways to flow.” — April LongWhat You Will Hear:0:00 - Introduction07:54 - The Corridor Banking Model.14:01 - How Off-Ramp Costs Change the Game for Stablecoins21:00 - The Triangular Liquidity Problem - Who is Africa Selling to and Where Are we Buying From?28:00 - Compliance as Structural Barrier 33:20 - How Stablecoins Act Like a Financial Hub37:30 - Why Nigeria Changed First 41:00 - The Velocity Argument — Turning Money Over Fast and How it Grows the Economy53:09 - The China Shift — Why China-Africa trade grew 18% in 2025Read by 16,000+ operators, investors, and practitioners across 126 countries.Subscribe: https://frontierfintech.substack.comSamora Kariuki (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/samorakariuki/April Long (Guest): https://www.linkedin.com/in/longapril/Frontier Fintech: https://frontierfintech.substack.comIf this episode was useful, a like or subscription takes four seconds and helps independent media reach more of the right people. The algorithm runs on signals — yours included.