Thandiwe Moyo

Pan-African neobank league: TymeBank leads on cost-to-serve at $2.10/customer, Kuda at $3.40, OPay at $2.80. Every $1 of CAC gap compounds into ~$18 of lifetime margin. The scale winners are now visible.

African frontier eurobond spreads compressed 90bps in 6 weeks — tightest since 2021. The rotation isn't sentiment, it's positioning: EM real-money added ~$2.1bn to Africa allocation in Q4. Watch primary issuance in Jan.

African ICT spend growing at 11.4% CAGR through FY29 vs global 5.8%. Consensus $80bn TAM by 2030 is now closer to $110bn on updated telco capex + hyperscaler builds. Everyone is under-modelling the compute layer.

African renewables reached FID on 4.2GW this quarter — a record. Solar LCOE at $0.038/kWh in the strongest sites now beats coal without subsidy. Generation mix inflection is here; transmission bottleneck is the next trade.

African agritech adoption crossed 18% of smallholder farmers vs 7% three years ago. Margin uplift is 22-31% at the farmgate. Highest-ROI development story on the continent and the market is barely covering it.

Intra-African stablecoin settlement volumes crossed $12bn TTM, up 4.5x YoY. Corridor take-rates compressed another 40bps this month. USDC and USDT are now the default rails between Lagos, Nairobi and Jo'burg treasuries.

Three African neobanks crossed EBITDA break-even this quarter — TymeBank (SA), Kuda (NG) and Umba (KE). The unit-economics debate is closed; the scale-to-profit debate begins.

AfCFTA intra-African trade hit 17.4% of total trade vs 14.1% at ratification. The 5-year adoption lag is on script; trade-facilitation protocols are the next unlock. Corridor logistics is the equity trade.

African fintech Series B+ funding down 42% YoY but median revenue at raise up 3.1x. The market is finally pricing revenue, not narrative. The 2027 cohort will be the strongest in continent history.

Diaspora remittances to Africa hit $102bn TTM — a record. Digital-first operators captured 68% of net-new flows. Bank-branch corridor economics are structurally impaired; the ~250bps take-rate is not coming back.