We had an amazing time listening to Fintech & Web 3 founders in May, from crypto adoption to Fintech in Africa, the industry is still bubbling with unique stories. Let us fill you in with 3 key takeaways from our session with Binance, Chipper Cash and Fiat Republic.
1. Web3 and traditional finance are two distinct worlds. Fiat Republic‘s founders, Adam Bialy and Sophie Guibaud took us on a deep dive into the Web3 world. They revealed how their company is working to bridge the Web3 and Banking worlds by providing a common language between traditional finance and crypto.
Adam and Sophie realised that banks cannot understand the reason behind the transaction that customers are making due to a lack of knowledge in the space. In the market, there is an obvious need for someone to come in and make peace between those two worlds and make them talk to one another. That is how they set up a mission of connecting Web3 and the banking world as Fiat Republic.
2. Fintech in Africa has still so much left in store. Wiza Jalakasi, VP of Global Developer Relations at Chipper Cash, shared his view on the growth of Fintech in Africa.
The Fintech sector in Africa grew faster than any other region globally in 2021, hitting $5.2 billion in total capital investment, and African fintechs are predicted to rise again in 2022. In fact, Wiza Jalakasi shared how the massive internet adoption is a catalyst in changing Africa and creating more opportunities in the region.
Jalakasi also discussed the instance of Nigeria specifically, commenting on how due to Facebook having to pay tax strike acquisition, it has now gained several angel investors, creating an advantage for the African ecosystem since that contextually aware capital can unlock a lot of doors in the market.
3. Countries must prepare for Web3. We had the chance to talk with Nadeem Ladki, Executive Director, Business Development & Strategic Partnerships at Binance, on how governments should prepare to be on the Web3 stage as we learned more about the UAE’s aim of making the region a worldwide crypto hub.
During the session, Nadeem underlined the importance of Web3, which is the next level of ownership in the digital world even if some people misunderstand or misrepresent Web3 as just cryptocurrency or blockchain. From a regional perspective, the UAE is one of the leading countries where they are not afraid of innovation, know what they want to be and how they want to do it, and this shows that the UAE has a strong foundational stage on Web3.
At the end of the session, Nadeem also mentioned that no matter how volatile the crypto market is, blockchain will stay the latest technology in the ecosystem and trading opportunities will be rebuilt again.
