How Changing landscape of Fintech is transforming career planning of aspirational bankers in Africa

Africa has been driving towards an evolving digital transformation and eventually cash flow in the coming years is deemed to be obsolete. The pandemic has reduced people’s thinking about how a physical transaction can be completely taken over by digital ones. However, with the advent of technological elements such as smart banking, smooth financial services, cryptocurrency, etc., made accessible to the African public, the gates for a new and innovative career road map seem to open for the people. African people are becoming more aware of Fintech and are taking the direction as their career transformation to not just improve the finance sector but also take their prospects to an improved and wider job opportunity landscape.

The emergence of Fintech in the Global space

It has given an automated space for investment, trading, banking services, risk management, alongside a vast pool of new opportunities for upcoming aspirational bankers.

The figure that investment in the African Fintech companies has grown by $1.49 billion in 2021, says it all as to where a banker’s career approach lies, and presses on the future, as we see is held by technological advancement. It is only wise to move with the hour and plan a career as the world demands.

The innovative and creative work culture of fintech offices is known mainly for productive space, incorporating state of the art technologies like Big data, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) that form the future of the world, leading to a constant work evolution. 

How Fintech is changing Career prospects

Transitioning forces of digitalization have altered and matured the banking industry to cause a stir in its employment potential. The dawn of the likes of digital transformation viz fintech, blockchain has opened new gates for career planning for aspirational bankers in the upcoming years. As permanent as a change is defined in the digital world as digital disruption, it paves for growth and we reap its benefits. Growing on the digital force, the finance sector is observed to be the most susceptible to growth and new changes, both as an industry and in terms of workforce. However, by nature finance is based on information that once physically available, is now readily culminated in the digital space and technology holds the key to its access.

• Financial Technology, with its targeted approach towards specific financial services, works with innovation and analytical skills and the ones complying with these are the best fit.
• Traditional banking careers are taking a downhill in the light of customers preferring mobile banking, online trading, opting for internet services. This paradigm shift towards technologically inclined banking has made aspirational bankers opt for identifying, understanding technology and looking for prosperous career options in this domain.
• Fintech offers a great way to brush the entrepreneurship skills of aspirants. A good part of the Fintech industry is a start-up and it brings to you the platform to be one of it in your own unique way. South Africa alone witnessed a total of 154 Fintech start-ups in the year 2021, followed by Nigeria at 144 number Fintech start-ups.
• Since Fintech bridges the gap between Finance and technology, it provides you with high technology exposure that raises the bar in the career prospects. With technology, we have had our tryst and so have come a myriad of other counter-technological forces that have added new opportunities, and freezing existing ones. With the rapid employment of these technologies and Fintech in general, both private and government sectors adopted them.
• With smartphones changing the outlook of consumers, making them glued to mobile services, and vulnerable to information leaks, fintech is here to offer the solutions for this too. To counter cyber-crimes, it uses advanced technological solutions like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Dealing with the challenging environment technology has brought, Fintech, with its risk assessment and solution-based approach, is here to stay. Working on a model of “relating to people”, this digitally aware technology in reaching out to aspiring bankers in Africa so they can create a career roadmap in this direction. It is offering the leadership roles, employees look for. Fintech is inspiring and motivating the bankers to adopt new technologies and gain the maximum out of them. It might seem like to task to shift or draw a new career path into fintech, with the way it has changed the landscape of the finance industry, but the transition is streamlined with its inviting and adoptive methodology.