Question $3(30$ Marks$)$

Financial Technologies $($FINTECH$)$ and Innovations in Digital Financial Services such as mobile money offers promising potential for financial inclusion and inclusive growth at a transformative scale. The recent adoption rate of both mobile money and block chain based solution is growing at exponential scale with Africa leading the rest of the world in both technologies. The recent statistics show that, the cryptocurrency adoption in Africa stands at $1200\%$ last year while the global average is only $800\%.$ Similar trend was recorded in mobile financial services. At the same time Africa has been lagging behind the world in term of financial inclusion and adoption of the main stream banking services and products. If there is anything we can learn from such trend is at least the understanding that mainstream business model has failed miserably to understand the African context and adapt accordingly. Discuss the competitive advantages of the Fintech and digital financial services and how they circumvent the problems of financial exclusion which was impossible to solve by main stream banking institutions.