Investor and Schwarzwald Capital founder Murad Salikhov argues that telecom companies have quietly become the dominant force in financial inclusion across emerging markets outpacing traditional banks by building payment infrastructure around the one asset most people already have.
The numbers back him up. Around 2.5 billion adults globally have never used a formal financial service. For a large share of that population, a mobile phone isn’t a convenient alternative to a bank account — it’s a replacement for one. M-Pesa, Kenya’s leading mobile payments platform, handled more than 70% of the country’s transactions in 2023 and enabled flows equivalent to nearly 60% of GDP. Africa-wide, mobile money volumes hit $1.1 trillion in 2024, around 65% of the global total. In Ghana and Senegal, the sector already accounts for more than 5% of GDP.
Telecoms did not set out to be financial institutions. Their original pitch was connectivity — voice, data, SMS. But in markets where bank branches were absent or irrelevant, the mobile network became the default financial rail. Salikhov frames the result as embedded finance: products like microloans, savings accounts and insurance integrated directly into platforms users already navigate daily, with no bank visit, no paperwork, and no waiting period measured in days.
The business models taking shape reflect the variety of the opportunity. In Kenya, Airtel and Equity Bank joined forces to launch Airtel Money, reaching two million users in under two years. MTN Uganda took a different route, securing its own financial license and building its services in-house — an operation now substantial enough that the company is preparing to spin off its mobile money and fintech unit for a separate listing on the Uganda Securities Exchange. Then there are stranger, more interesting hybrids: farmers near Arusha, Tanzania, use platforms that combine mobile payments with real-time weather data and crop prices, collapsing the line between financial tool and agricultural advisory.
eSIM adoption, still nascent across much of Africa, adds another layer. By eliminating the physical SIM card and enabling remote activation, the technology extends reach into areas where even telecom agents are thin on the ground — and, proponents argue, builds user trust by anchoring financial identity more securely to the device itself.
The broader picture Salikhov draws is one of structural bypass. Where conventional finance stalled at the cost and complexity of physical expansion, telecoms moved on different terms — and built something that now underpins daily economic life for hundreds of millions of people. The banks are still running the numbers. The infrastructure is already there.
