"A surprisingly effective way to get what you want is to not settle for less than what you want. It doesn't always work—you can't force the world to be a certain way—and you may need patience and doggedness, but your life bends toward what you accept.". –@JamesClear.

The ability to live with ambiguity is a very rare thing and those people that can do this tend to assume that everyone else can. Some people need extreme structure. Very important leadership lesson.

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Also making headlines this week:.MTN & J.P. Morgan's eBill of Exchange pilot 🇿🇦.cNGN, Nigeria's regulated stablecoin, surpasses $2.5M in volume 🇳🇬.FirstBank hits N1 Trillion in digital loan disbursements 🇳🇬. and much more.

🌍 A new @WorldBank report shows mobile money is driving financial inclusion to 79% globally. But there's a catch: financial health isn't improving. The gap between digital access and user well-being is widening, a critical issue for consumer protection in digital finance.

🇿🇦 The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is overhauling its national payments system to tackle high costs and fragmentation. The plan includes a national payments utility (NPU) for low-cost, real-time transactions, a major shift toward an open, state-governed model like Brazil's.

🇰🇪 @AIRTEL_KE hits 24M subscribers, capturing 32% market share (up from 14% in 2017). This isn't just subscriber growth; it's a direct challenge to Safaricom's dominance. As Airtel Money gains critical mass, the competitive landscape for payments & lending could be shifting.

The latest edition of Frontier Fintech GPS is here! 🧵. Every week, I break down the top stories shaping finance and tech in Africa. This week's deep dive:. @AIRTEL_KE 's surge in Kenya.South Africa's payment system overhaul.A critical World Bank report on financial health

Kabza absolute cooked with his recent album. The King of Amapiano 👑.

The key takeaway for investors & operators: Stop debating "BNPL vs. Asset Finance" in a vacuum. Start by analyzing the ecosystem. The most critical strategic decision is matching the right model to the right market. My full analysis with all the data is in the article - link in.

But there's another crucial layer, especially in South Africa. Incumbents. Retail giants like Pepkor are now fintech powerhouses, generating nearly $900M in annualized revenue from fintech services. Their distribution advantage allows them to dominate both Type A and B segments.

The data tells a clear story. 🇿🇦 South Africa's deep formal retail sector (60%+) and higher discretionary income make it a prime TYPE B market. 🇰🇪 Kenya & 🇳🇬 Nigeria, with large informal economies, are clear TYPE A markets. The "job to be done" is productive finance.

So how do you know which model fits which market?. I built a data-driven framework using a composite score based on 3 key metrics: .1️⃣ Household Consumption Expenditure .2️⃣ Formality of the Retail Market .3️⃣ % of Income Spent on Food (a proxy for discretionary income).

▶️ TYPE B: The POS-Integrated Consumption Model. Who: The banked, salaried middle class. What: Smoothes discretionary spending on lifestyle goods (e.g., fashion, electronics). How: Relies on deep integration with FORMAL retail checkouts. Think PayJustNow.

▶️ TYPE A: The Asset-Financing Model. Who: The vast, underbanked informal economy. What: Finances productive assets that generate income or savings (e.g., a smartphone for business, a solar system, a motorcycle). How: Solves for economic empowerment. Think M-Kopa, Watu.

The African digital lending market has effectively split into two fundamentally different models. To succeed, you have to know which game you're playing. I call them Type A and Type B.

The common narrative points to "high defaults" or a "collapsing economy." This is a fallacy. The real answer lies in a concept I call Product-Market-ECOSYSTEM Fit. You can't force a model built for one type of economy onto another.

🤔 Why does asset-financing (M-Kopa) thrive in Kenya while pure-play consumption BNPL struggles?. Yet in South Africa, consumption BNPL (PayJustNow) is dominant?. It’s not a simple story of "good" vs. "bad" economies. The answer is more nuanced. 🧵👇

Traditional South African Enterprises have shown the most impressive Fintech transformation in Africa. Definitely worth a HBS Case study.