🚁 Heli view: Where green fintech is heading

The combination of digital financial services and climate-positive business has gained mainstream momentum in Africa. 

• Innovative cleantech firms increasingly provide related financial solutions. 

• This trend has given birth to a hybrid: Green fintechs.

• They deploy new financing tools to widen public adoption of climate solutions.

From the start: Some of the green fintechs were born green.

• Solar systems provider Sun King always knew that making renewable energy affordable meant solving payment issues.

• Recently launched electric motorbike maker Zeno put proprietary consumer financing into its first business model. 

In the meantime: Original non-green fintechs increasingly see profitable opportunities in Africa’s fast-growing climate economy. 

• South Africa’s Yoco went from payment processing to serving eco-friendly business models.

• Ecocash in Zimbabwe, once a mobile money play, now supports “revolutionary energy solutions”.

• Trade finance specialist Mercore increasingly provides its digital financing contracts to green businesses.

On the flip side: Ever more climate entrepreneurs are also leveraging fintech solutions to get traction in a tough market.

• Consumer finance provider M-Kopa has seen electric motorbikes overtake phones and televisions as a top earner.

Tech is key: Green fintech could not have been a thing a decade ago. Only recent innovations made it possible.

• Mobile money removed tired banks from the loop.

• New agent networks made rural Africa accessible. 

• Wireless monitoring replaced the need for trusted relationships. 

• Blockchain technology removed further intermediaries.