Scaling payment talents in Africa: Reality, challenges, and opportunities

• Africa’s fintech growth is driven by mobile-first adoption, unmet banking needs, and strong investment inflows, but talent development is lagging behind.
• Intreensic is addressing the skills gap by offering structured training, certifications, and mentorship to build a globally competitive payments workforce.
• High-demand areas include compliance, risk management, data science, and cybersecurity, with adaptability and a customer-centric mindset being essential for success.

  Africa’s payments and fintech ecosystem has grown into one of the continent’s most vibrant industries, attracting billions of dollars in funding and reshaping how businesses and consumers transact.

  Yet behind the rapid growth lies a pressing challenge: the shortage of skilled professionals to power this transformation.

  In this exclusive conversation with Nairametrics, Nkebet Mesele, Founder of Intreensic, reflects on the realities of scaling payment talents in Africa, the challenges holding back growth, and the opportunities for building a globally competitive workforce.

  Q1: The African fintech ecosystem has experienced rapid growth. From your perspective, what is driving this boom? 

  Nkebet Mesele: Africa’s fintech boom is largely driven by necessity. Traditional banking has left millions unbanked, and fintechs stepped in to solve real problems—from Peer- to -Peer payments, credit, and savings—at scale. The continent is mobile-first, with a young, tech-savvy population, which makes adoption easier. Add to those the massive investment inflows, and you have an industry growing faster than the talent pool can keep up with.

  Q2: With all this growth, why is talent still considered a major bottleneck in payments? 

  Nkebet Mesele: The truth is, many professionals stumbled into payments without structured knowledge. This has led to compliance and regulatory failures, bad customer experience due to technical glitches, and costly mistakes.

  Payments is a highly specialized field; you wouldn’t let someone “learn on the job” as a doctor or engineer. Yet, in payments, this happens too often. The lack of structured training is the biggest barrier to scale across the continent.

  Q3: You’ve often spoken about misconceptions around fintech careers. What are some of the biggest myths? 

  Nkebet Mesele: The biggest misconception is that fintech is only for coders and software engineers. That’s simply not true. The ecosystem needs lawyers, compliance officers, risk managers, business developers, customer success professionals, and project managers. In fact, many of the most in-demand roles today are not coding-heavy but focus on risk, compliance, product, and operations.

  Q4: Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, what skills are most likely to get people hired in payments? 

  Nkebet Mesele: Technical knowledge is key, but mindset and adaptability often determine who gets hired. Employers want professionals who can communicate clearly, collaborate across functions, and remain resilient in fast-changing environments. On the technical side, skills in compliance, risk management, data analytics, and AI-driven financial solutions are becoming critical. Candidates who can marry technical expertise with regulatory understanding will stand out.

  Q5: You’ve positioned Intreensic as a payments-focused school. What gap exactly are you solving? 

  Nkebet Mesele: Intreensic was born out of a very simple observation: the payments sector is too important to leave to chance. Too many professionals were learning piecemeal, often after mistakes had already been made. We wanted to create structured pathways—certifications, practical training, and mentorship—so that professionals entering the field are not just employable but competitive globally with a certification that is valid around the world.

  Q6: What challenges have you seen fintech employers face when it comes to hiring? 

  Nkebet Mesele: Employers often tell me that while they receive hundreds of applications, very few candidates have the right mix of skills. Many job seekers underestimate how competitive the market is. The war for talent is fierce but very selective. Candidates who are not deliberate about upskilling both technical and soft skills risk being overlooked.

  Q7: In your view, where are the biggest growth areas for payments talent in Africa? 

  Nkebet Mesele: Compliance, risk management, data science, and cybersecurity are huge growth areas. As regulations evolve, companies can’t afford to make mistakes in compliance. Data is another area where demand is exploding—understanding customer behavior, preventing fraud, and driving better product decisions all rely on strong data skills.

  Q8: Beyond skills, what mindset should professionals develop to thrive in payments? 

  Nkebet Mesele: Payments is fast-moving, so adaptability is non-negotiable. Professionals need to be customer-obsessed, resilient under pressure, and capable of lifelong learning. Technology changes every few months, and so must talent. The people who thrive in payments are the ones who can keep evolving with dynamic trends and prevailing realities.

  Q9: How does Intreensic plan to bridge the talent gap at scale? 

  Nkebet Mesele: Our model combines global faculty, industry-driven curriculum, and practical immersion. We’re not just teaching theory—we’re equipping learners with case studies, regulatory frameworks, and real-world problem solving. Beyond the classroom, we want to build a strong community of payment professionals who can collaborate, mentor, and lift the industry together.

  Q10: Finally, what opportunities excite you the most about the future of Africa’s payments industry? 

  Nkebet Mesele: The opportunity is enormous. Africa has the chance to leapfrog, not just in technology but in how we build the workforce of the future. If we get talent right, we can create payment systems that are not only globally competitive but uniquely African—solutions that reflect our realities while setting global standards. That’s what excites me the most.

Scaling payment talents in Africa: Reality, challenges, and opportunities  - Nairametrics