Original title: Crypto and Fintech Are Colliding. Who Wins, and How?

Original source: Unchained Podcast

Original translation: Ismay, BlockBeats

Editor's note: As global financial technology and cryptocurrency continue to merge, the story of Elizabeth Rossiello, founder of AZA Finance, provides a rare window of observation - she is not only one of the earliest crypto infrastructure builders in Africa, but also has personally experienced and shaped the structural evolution of African financial technology.

This 13-year entrepreneurial journey started with Bitcoin and ended with stablecoins; from Kenya, a hotbed of mobile payments, to Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa, where remittances are most concentrated, to the merger and acquisition with Latin American giant dLocal, AZA Finance essentially witnessed the early outbreak of a trend: in emerging markets, "crypto + fintech" is not the future, but reality.

In this Unchained interview, Elizabeth details the evolution of Africa’s financial network, the real needs of the remittance market, how to find a liquidity center between the US dollar and the local currency, and why stablecoins are infrastructure rather than speculative tools in Africa. At the same time, she also talked about the difficulties faced by female entrepreneurs in the crypto industry and how companies in the "Global South" can gain autonomy in the global financial landscape.

The following is the interview conversation:

Laura Shen: I remember you were our first guest at Unchained nine years ago. Although it’s a bit late to invite you back, the timing is really coincidental. Your company has just announced that it will be acquired by Uruguayan payment company dLocal after obtaining regulatory approval. And we are in the "Summer of Stablecoins", when the fintech and crypto industries are basically competing fiercely on the same track, so this is really the perfect time to invite you back.

Elizabeth: It’s crazy, it feels like a whole other world since we first chatted.

Laura Shen: I recently listened to the first episode, and it was so interesting that you mentioned that when you first started, if someone wanted to send money to China, they would actually send someone over with a bag of cash...

Elizabeth: Yes, that's right. Even when Barry Silbert made my first investment, he sent me a check directly because there was no way to wire money. I received a check sent by DHL, and it said "Bit Opportunity Fund" on it, and then my bank sent the check back to the United States from Kenya for verification. I thought this was crazy, it was completely ridiculous.

African Payment Systems

Laura Shen: Yes, so can you describe what the payment system in Africa was like at that time? We can also review the changes that have taken place over the past decade. Because to some extent, I feel that you have already experienced the changes that the United States is just beginning to face now.

Elizabeth: There is a common joke in the African fintech community that outsiders always say that Africa "skipped traditional infrastructure and went straight to the mobile era." We actually hate this statement. Many investors or journalists use these words, saying that Africa is a blank canvas, and then technology comes in and changes everything. I don't think this is a true portrayal.

I moved to Nairobi, Kenya, in 2009, two years after the launch of the mobile payment platform M-Pesa. Although there had been many innovations in telecommunications before, the emergence of M-Pesa really changed everything. There were many reasons for its rapid adoption in Kenya, including government support, "luck" in the competitive environment, the growth of the "Kenyan Economic Tigers", and the rise of the middle class. All these factors combined made that period a golden period for M-Pesa to dominate the stage.

I was riding the wave when research institutions, development organizations, private companies, and investors from all over the world were paying attention to the transformation in Kenya. Even after 15 or 20 years, if you go to any digital technology conference in Africa, everyone will start by saying, "Do you know M-Pesa?" It was truly an opportunity to change a generation.

At that time, there was a technology incubator called iHub in Kilimani, Nairobi. Google was one of the sponsors. It was like the prototype of the Silicon Valley Oasis in Africa. There were only about 20 to 30 people in total, and there was a cafe. Almost the same people came every day. There were a few cool programming bootcamps, such as AkiraChix, and some Ruby and Rails programmers.

We also hosted Bitcoin meetups, which initially consisted of just me, my co-founder Charlene, a few friends like Kelly and Brenda Guard, and some crypto enthusiasts.

We founded BitPesa, the first Bitcoin exchange in Africa to trade cryptocurrencies, the first Bitcoin exchange in the world to be directly connected to the mobile payment system, and the first crypto exchange in the world to be run by women, as far as we know—me, Charlene, and later Amy. We were the ones who laid the first foundation in the early days.

Then Barry Silbert found out about our project and said, “Come to New York and tell me about it.” We met him and he invested in us. Then Pantera found out about us, and Blockchain Capital found out about us. Most importantly, Joe Bishero, who was then the general manager of Google Kenya and later became a cabinet minister, found out about us and invested in us. All this happened in November 2013.

Laura Shen: You arrived in Africa in 2009. So in which year did you come into contact with Bitcoin?

Elizabeth: In 2013, I had been working in microfinance for five years before that. The so-called "microfinance" can actually be said to be one of the earliest forms of financial technology - providing banking services through mobile payments. In many cases, this process is very manual. For example, in Ethiopia, some institutions provide services to hundreds of thousands of customers, and all calculations are done manually. But in countries like Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda, they have already used MTN's mobile payments or mobile financial tools like Kenya's M-Pesa.

My co-founder Charlene also works in this field, and she mainly does some asset financing projects, such as providing financial support for irrigation and water conservancy. At that time, we really went deep into the frontline work, went to some very remote areas, and communicated face-to-face with female fishermen, agricultural practitioners, and breeders in various villages and huts in Botswana, Malawi, and Ghana to understand how technology has truly changed the financial accessibility of the "Bankless People".

I have been doing field work for about five years and have written a lot of research reports analyzing the operational effectiveness of these projects. Most of the projects are very effective and the data is very good, but the core problem lies in the source of capital. After all, the essence of microcredit is "re-lending" - you must have funds before you can lend. And these funds often come from global donors in the form of "hard currency", such as US dollars.

Here's the thing, how can you operate in a country with a local currency and take out a loan in another currency? I always say if you operate in Kenyan shillings and it keeps depreciating against the dollar, how can you possibly take out that dollar loan?

This became a key issue I discussed in many of my reports at the time, and it was also a direction I paid special attention to. It was not until October 2013 that I first came into contact with Bitcoin, and I immediately thought that it might be a solution to open up liquidity between currencies.

Perhaps we no longer need to rely on hard currencies like the US dollar to finance local financial institutions. Perhaps we can use Bitcoin to trade currencies directly, such as between Kenyan shillings and Nigerian nairas, or between shillings and South African rands. We can even use it to make cross-border transactions within Africa smoother.

Because many of the companies I served at the time were not only operating in Kenya, but also active in Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and many other countries. But the problem is that there is no convenient cross-border payment channel in Africa. In Kenya, using M-Pesa for payment is so fast and convenient that it is almost unbelievable.

I think it was because we were already exposed to the Lightning network, and mobile payments were so convenient. I never carried a wallet with me, and I paid for almost everything with my phone—school fees, plane tickets, even a tomato. When my parents or family came to visit me from New York, they would still take out their wallets, and I would say, "Put your wallet away, I've already paid."

At that time, we really seemed to be living in the future. And when we needed to make an international remittance, it felt particularly absurd to go back to the "past" way. Why didn't anyone solve this problem? So we started thinking: If we superimpose Bitcoin technology on the transaction structure of the local currency market, will there be opportunities? These ideas gradually intertwined and eventually led to the idea of ​​​​starting a business.

Evolution of payment tools

Laura Shen: You just mentioned that you initially connected through Bitcoin. In other words, you initially used Bitcoin as an intermediate technology to allow people in Canada or other places to send remittances to Kenya, right?

Can you talk about how this model has evolved? I guess you are using more stablecoins now, and I also noticed that you have also connected to a lot of financial technology tools. Can you talk about the evolution of this path?

Elizabeth: I was still paying off my student loan at the time and had a US dollar account at CityBank. I was wondering how to transfer the money? Then I tried to initiate a wire transfer through Barclays Kenya branch, but I was woken up in the middle of the night for a phone call confirmation. The whole process was very troublesome.

So we thought we could just sell bitcoin to Kenyans, and then they could sell bitcoin in the US, Canada or Europe and make payments. There were some really cool cryptocurrency exchanges that let you convert cryptocurrency directly into your bank account - although these services have since been cancelled, they were really useful at the time.

So my international friends in Kenya said, "Great, I buy Bitcoin and can pay directly into my European bank account, or transfer money to CityBank or my Canadian account." These were our earliest users.

Then we met some local Kenyans at iHub, and they said, “We also want to use this to invest, send remittances to Asia, or just because we like other currencies and want to launch some new projects.” We said, “No problem.” And that’s how they entered the crypto community.

So it started with international remittances, and then gradually became a variety of needs around cryptocurrency - including how to get new users into the crypto world. Later, our business expanded to more countries.

I remember when we first entered the Nigerian market, Jeremiah Layer helped us convert payments. At that time, a Nigerian user had to pay his daughter's tuition at Harvard, $30,000 or $40,000 at a time. Jeremy helped us connect to the banking system in Boston, and we sent it through cryptocurrency.

In this way, our model gradually evolved and expanded. But the problem we really realized later was actually what I mentioned at the beginning - how to complete payments between African countries.

We found that there were no cryptocurrency exchanges in Nigeria at the time, and we were both a trading platform in Kenya and Nigeria. So the question was, do we really need to send cryptocurrency back and forth between the two countries? Or can we just do the fund pool locally?

So we began to explore the "fund pool" approach, which means that we don't have to actually "send" crypto assets from one country to another, we only need to hedge in the internal fund pool.

Then we moved to doing foreign exchange directly. Sometimes users wanted to exchange Nigerian naira for Kenyan shillings, sometimes they wanted to exchange Bitcoin, and we handled all of those requests equally.

I said in my speech that we are not going to start a "crypto company", but a "company that can use cryptocurrency". There is a fundamental difference between the two - many people start by "starting a crypto company first" and then looking for application scenarios; while we start from actual needs and then choose the most appropriate tools, including cryptocurrency and legal currency. In many cases, using legal currency is more efficient and practical.

To this day, our company trades over 150 fiat currencies worldwide while remaining crypto-native. We always stick to the currency that our customers need most, whether it’s fiat or crypto.

More importantly, we have deeply integrated crypto assets at all levels, including risk control, technology, and knowledge systems. Recently, we are integrating with dLocal, and they often ask us, "Where is your crypto team?" We answer, "Our entire team is the crypto team." Every compliance officer in our company understands crypto, every trader can operate crypto transactions, and every new employee must receive crypto training.

I think this is one of the core differentiators of our company - because we start from the ground and are personally involved in building in emerging markets, all of this comes very naturally to us.

I didn’t wake up one morning and suddenly decide “I want to do crypto”, but we want to solve the problems of “how to make cross-border payments efficiently” and “how to trade local currencies in Africa”, and cryptocurrency is just a means to achieve these goals.

So when I see people like Jack Zhang (co-founder of Airwallex) or others saying “encryption has no real use cases”, I feel bad because encryption has many real use cases.

Laura Shen: What kind of fees did traditional payment service providers usually charge at that time? What difficulties did users face when using these services? And then tell us how different your solution is and what your pricing is?

Elizabeth: When we started our business, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals listed "lowering remittance costs" as a development priority. At that time, the average remittance cost in Africa was almost twice that of Southeast Asia and South America. Those regions were about 2% to 4%, while many markets in Africa were 4% to 8%, and some were even as high as 10% or more.

This includes the structural problem that traditional remittance companies have a monopoly in many countries, and that cross-border wire transfers around the world almost all go through two or three large banks - mainly Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank at the time, as well as the so-called "corresponding bank network." In addition, the monetary policy and banking infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa have also laid the roots of "high friction and high cost."

When we were first established, Bloomberg had a report about us with the headline "Western Union Killer", which was indeed our goal at the time. And under our impact, Western Union later lowered its prices.

As you can imagine, for a startup, this kind of influence is almost intoxicating - we seem to realize: "Wow, we have the ability to illuminate this dark corner!" We are just a small and insignificant company, but we really feel a huge power. Maybe this also makes us a little arrogant, thinking that we can really change the world. But that feeling is really exciting.

Now, 13 years later, there are many projects replicating our model. We also changed our company name from the original word "Pesa" (a term used in East Africa) to a more general brand name applicable to the whole of Africa.

Global financial trading centers like Hong Kong, Zurich, London, and New York have countless asset managers, brokerage firms, prime brokers, traders, and market makers. Each link is indispensable. I think every major city in Africa should have the same level of financial infrastructure. We need multiple market makers and multiple service providers. Only in this way can competition be more intense and the market will be more mature.

Although as a founder, I certainly hope to dominate the market. But from a higher perspective, as someone who truly cares about the development of this continent, I hope to see the entire ecosystem prosper.

Why expand into Africa?

Laura Shen: How do you decide which African markets to expand into over time? What types of customers do you serve in different regions?

Elizabeth: It was clear that the biggest buyers of African currency were remittance companies. Remittances to Africa were about $34 billion that year, and now I did a quick check and the annual remittance volume to Africa is now over $500 billion. The growth in the past 13 years is really amazing.

In the first few years when we started, the remittance market was still very attractive, and we wanted to get a piece of the pie because these cross-border remittance companies were the ones who really "buyed African currency". On the other hand, we also had many corporate clients who "sold African currency".

At first, we were doing retail business for individuals, but later we found that we simply did not have enough market budget to do large-scale business, so we decided to move up and turn to institutional and wholesale clients.

We really realized the value of this transformation when a customer transferred $35,000 to Harvard University through us - that amount was far better than a retail investor who only transferred $5, so we began to focus on B2B and look for remittance companies to work with.

Our first major breakthrough was working with a US-listed cross-border remittance company. They were preparing to launch in the Nigerian market, and their financial team quietly decided to pay us in Bitcoin. We then settled the payment in Naira to their account in Nigeria, and we were still using Skype to connect. They were surprised to find that our exchange rate and settlement speed far exceeded traditional methods, and the entire product worked very well.

Later, we continued to improve our compliance capabilities, obtained a financial license in the UK, obtained a license in Spain, and acquired some companies with local licenses. We chose to enter the Nigerian market first because it is the largest remittance recipient in Africa, and then entered Ghana, which is also an important remittance market.

We mainly evaluated two factors: one is the size of the local remittance market; the other is whether it is convenient to access the banking system for settlement. This was the basic logic behind our market expansion at the time.

But then Nigeria went through a political phase that was extremely unfriendly to fintech and cross-border remittances. So we decided to turn to French-speaking Africa, a region that was almost untouched at the time. We were one of the first fintech companies to enter the French-speaking African market, launching in Senegal in 2016, very early.

Today, Senegal, the entire West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) region, as well as Cameroon and the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) region in Central Africa, have become some of the hottest markets for fintech in Africa.

So it's completely different now. Like I just got off a call this morning, we were like, there are so many market makers, so many competitors in the market now, and it's actually very comforting to see that. You know, when we first started, there was really no one else, and we only worked with one or two remittance companies.

Now, we have established partnerships with 35 of the world's largest cross-border remittance companies, including Western Union and MoneyGram, and they now trade on our platform. Of course, most of them have not started using cryptocurrencies or stablecoins, and only a few have tried (I won't name them). However, a large number of our corporate customers on the other side are now mainly using stablecoins, which has indeed changed a lot in the past few years.

How to transition from Bitcoin to stablecoins?

Laura Shen: Let's talk about the transition process. How did you transition from Bitcoin to stablecoins? I guess it started with stablecoins, such as USDT? When did you make this transition? Why? How did it affect your business?

Elizabeth: The initial market demand was mainly focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum. There was not much demand for other small currencies. Many customers initially entered the market through us, and then went to other global trading platforms for short-term trading or other operations. We are more like an entry point, allowing them to exchange local African currencies for crypto assets, or vice versa, to exchange crypto assets back to local fiat currencies, and they can also get a good exchange rate.

However, to make this model work, a lot of liquidity is needed, so we basically stick to mainstream coins. Occasionally, a particularly popular token will emerge in a year, and people will ask about it, and we will sell it, but in general, we have always focused on the most liquid coins.

About four or five years ago, customers started asking us if we had USDT, so we started selling it. Unexpectedly, about 95% of our crypto trading volume later went to stablecoins. This was a bit surprising to us, and we were thinking, "Do you really think this is more stable than other cryptocurrencies?"

There is actually no final conclusion on this issue to this day, but it is clear that the market believes that it is more "safe." We do not judge the user's choice, we just listen to their needs and comply with them.

Laura Shen: So when you said "the market thinks it is safer", what do you mean specifically? Are you saying that this kind of reserve-backed stablecoin has centralization risks? Or are you talking about the US dollar itself, such as its relationship with the Federal Reserve?

Elizabeth: I just think that stablecoins are essentially privately issued coins, right? And they have not been regulated for a long time. So... how should I put it? I actually believed in the security and stability of Bitcoin at the beginning. So I was quite surprised at the time - why do people think that a stablecoin issued by a private company is more stable, or even ten times more stable?

Many companies used to kick us out of the office when they heard us talking about Bitcoin, but later they were very excited about stablecoins. This really made me a little confused at first. But anyway, I think the reason behind this is more because the marketing of stablecoins has been very successful, and people are more likely to accept it.

So I don't judge at all, it's the customer's choice. After we started selling, we did see a lot of market demand.

Now even the remittance industry, which has been the slowest to adopt new technology (except for one or two early adopters), is now saying, “It’s convenient to do business with us in stablecoins, especially on weekends, on Fridays, during Ramadan when our volume goes through the roof.”

For example, the US dollar system is closed on holidays such as Memorial Day and Labor Day in the United States. But people may forget that once the US banking system enters the weekend or holiday, companies doing transactions must bear credit risk for two to three days, or even longer. If you add that the local banking system itself is very slow, such as some countries in French-speaking West Africa, domestic transfers take 24 to 48 hours, then the overall settlement cycle may add another two days.

Then who is "prefunding" the liquidity these days? This is not just a remittance issue, but a problem for the entire financial system.

Therefore, tools that can achieve 24/7 clearing are truly in line with the operating logic of this world. China talks about the "7-day work week", and in many places in Africa, people do work seven days a week.

When I was speaking on the Money 20/20 stage a few years ago, a very famous fintech CEO said to me, "Elizabeth, only illegal activity happens on weekends." I wanted to refute her on the spot - although I still won't name her now. But you see, the market operates 24/7, and trading does not care whether you have a 2pm settlement deadline.

Laura Shen: I feel like I've learned something new. I didn't know that Africa and China have a seven-day work week. I used to live in Indonesia, where they have a six-day work week, but I don't really understand what you're talking about.

Elizabeth: Yes, for example, the Nigerian banking system supports 24/7 clearing.

Laura Shen: That's really interesting. So you're saying that Nigeria can do this, but the rest of Africa may still be slower. In other words, even your "intra-African business" needs to face different liquidation cycles, right?

Elizabeth: Sometimes banks are not open all day, but they are generally open on Saturdays, and in many parts of Africa, people work on Saturdays as usual. Especially in East Africa, people work at least half a day on Saturdays, and in many places even more. In addition to the market opening, people also arrange business meetings on Sundays. Not everyone goes to play golf every weekend. Weekends are also working time for many people.

Moreover, remittances are often made to celebrate festivals or family gatherings, and these activities usually take place on weekends or holidays. Therefore, the amount of remittances on weekends is actually very large, and business activities on weekends are also frequent.

Laura Shen: I see. Your business structure should have been changing over the years. Can you tell me what the approximate distribution was between your remittance business and B2B business? How many different types of payments did you handle?

Elizabeth: We actually have a very balanced structure – 50% are buyers of African currencies and 50% are sellers.

Remittance companies have always been the “buyers” – they need to exchange foreign currencies such as US dollars or euros for local African currencies. However, there are actually very few remittance companies that can actually “remit funds out of Africa”, with only a few exceptions, such as some cross-border remittances within Africa.

So roughly half of our business comes from remittance companies and the other half comes from corporate clients. Corporate clients include fintech companies, cryptocurrency exchanges, banks, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, etc. Over the years, the customer structure has also changed - from mainly traditional corporates in the beginning to mainly fintech companies and banks now. This has been a very interesting evolution over the past 13 years.

On the inflow side, remittance companies are still the main ones, but we have also started to connect with some payment companies.

I think payment networks like Circle, or other payment networks that wanted to integrate remittance flows in the past, were initially very ambitious and excited, but the biggest problem was that they were ultimately unable to truly “connect” to these companies.

Their network may be beautifully built, but even though the roads are built, there are no cars driving on them.

What makes us different is that we actually implement these remittance transactions and have connected these companies.

So when you build a middle-tier network and say, "Everyone come use my network," people will think, "Why should I switch? We are already working with these companies."

Many people want to build something like a "remittance infrastructure network" or a "payment channel network" and say that everyone will come to access it. But the problem is that you have to attract customers one by one, provide competitive exchange rates, stable services, good APIs, and embed yourself in other people's payment links to become a trusted intermediary.

Currently, there are not many companies in the world that have completed the entire process like us. For example, Bitso started in Latin America at almost the same time as us. They are parallel universe peers and are now very successful.

There are a few other companies that have accomplished this deep integration, but they are certainly in the minority.

Laura Shen: Back to the topic of stablecoins, you just said that many people are starting to ask to use USDT. Do they specify which chain they want to use it on? After all, USDT has gradually expanded from the earliest Omni network to more chains. Do you handle these choices yourself in the background based on factors such as handling fees, or do users make clear requests themselves, such as "I want a certain type of USDT"?

Elizabeth: I don’t have a particularly “smart” answer to this question (laughs). This trend has evolved gradually. In most cases, users choose the most basic network, such as the Ethereum ERC-20 chain. We hardly see much diversified demand.

In fact, the vast majority of trading volume is concentrated in a few mainstream wallets and trading platforms. You may think this answer is boring, but it is the truth. Many people who do intraday trading or chase new projects may think that the ecosystem is flourishing and technology is constantly innovating, but for most users, they are just repeatedly using the same three wallets and three trading platforms.

What changes have taken place in the overall environment in Africa?

Laura Shen: Got it. So from a more macro perspective, now that it's been twelve years since your company was founded, how do you think the use of cryptocurrency has changed across Africa?

Elizabeth: Actually, the changes are not as big as everyone imagines. Yes, from the earliest Bitcoin and Ethereum, we have indeed turned more to USDT, using ERC-20 wallets. But overall, the types of wallets have not changed much, and users do not seem to care much about the type of wallet, because they transfer money very quickly and do not hold it for a long time.

Laura Shen: OK, I understand. But what I actually want to ask is - apart from your company, from your perspective of living in Africa, do you feel that the whole environment has changed?

Elizabeth: Oh, of course. Now when you walk into the Lagos airport, there are advertisements for fintech and cryptocurrencies everywhere, and slogans everywhere saying "Crypto is legal". Although some of them are not completely legal from a legal perspective, the picture you see is completely different.

There was a huge Binance advertisement on the entire airport wall. Even though Nigeria was still suppressing cryptocurrencies at the time, they didn’t care and covered the entire venue. There were even Nigerian superstars who participated in American variety shows, and the sponsor behind them was Binance.

It was a really crazy time - all companies rushed into this field, everyone was saying "I am the only one with a license" "I am the only one who can do this business", there were slogans everywhere, and few people really understood this industry. But a lot of money did flow into this market, and startups sprang up like mushrooms after rain.

We just attended an event called Africa Tech Summit in April. There were hundreds of companies on site, half of which were related to cryptocurrencies. This happened before the so-called "Summer of Stablecoins", which can be said to be a prelude. You can see a trend happening in Africa, and it then affects the world.

Everyone was there, and it was a really powerful scene. The event was held about a kilometer away from the cafe where we held our Bitcoin Meetup. At that moment, I really felt like a grandmother crying at her grandson’s kindergarten graduation ceremony: “Oh my god, this is all so beautiful.” My team was also there. At that time, we were actually in the acquisition process with dLocal, but we hadn’t announced it publicly. Some people knew, but we didn’t tell them completely. There were also people who couldn’t get into the cryptocurrency-themed party because they didn’t have tickets. We were waiting in line, and someone said, “We know her, she’s the lady in the crypto circle, let her in.” I didn’t know whether to be proud or laugh and cry.

Our team joked, “Are we attending a boring event?” But you know, at that moment we all realized that this ecosystem was completely different.

This is not the world that I was in when I emailed you 10 years ago. It’s really a new era now. I hear a lot of banks in Nigeria asking, “How do we get into this? How do we provide this kind of service?”

This is another planet entirely.

Laura Shen: Did the outbreak really happen during that period, was it around 2021?

Elizabeth: Definitely after COVID-19. You could say there is a big difference between “PC” — Pre-Covid and “AC” — After-Covid. During the pandemic, companies with digital capabilities basically took over the entire market. We also had one of our best years at that time, while many offline traditional banks suffered. At the same time, wallet services that do not rely on SIM cards and are not linked to telecom operators have risen rapidly.

There were a lot of payment companies that were focused on local payments, like Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, and wallets like Wave that didn’t rely on SIM cards. That was the first time these big payment companies got huge investments, expanded rapidly, and proved to telecom operators that they could “overtake” — I’ll use that word — and challenge the original monopoly. It was an exciting time.

Of course, we didn’t do the kind of large-scale $300 million rounds that retail payment companies usually do, which is a completely different game - large capital requirements, high profits, but also huge expenses. We have a different business model and have always focused on the B2B business area. But it is true that during that period, some unicorn companies began to emerge, and although some of them later collapsed, they at least tried to break through like a "moon landing" and did enter the market.

Now you see more and more regulators actually issuing licenses. South Africa is usually the first to act, and last year it issued licenses to 50 trading platforms at once, which is great. And Nigeria, after years of discussion and a ten-year white paper, finally issued two licenses - but they are not the companies you think. You can check them out, and almost no one has heard of these two companies. So now many companies that claim to be "legal and compliant" in Nigeria are actually not licensed.

In Central Africa, so-called "VASP" licenses (virtual asset service providers) have also been issued. So the market is no longer a disorderly free competition, but a space that is gradually moving towards regulation. I think this is a good thing that is necessary for the next development.

How does the acquisition business proceed?

Laura Shen: You mentioned that you acquired two companies, and it sounds like they were acquired to obtain relevant licenses. Can you talk about how you decide which companies to acquire and how these acquisitions drive the development of your business?

Elizabeth: Yes, the first acquisition was when the UK was leaving the EU. We were worried that we would lose market access in the UK, and we happened to hold a UK payment license at the time. So we started looking at acquiring one of our clients, TransferZero. It has a license from the Bank of Spain, and the founder is very outstanding - his father also started out in the remittance business and has deep connections and background in this field. We eventually completed the acquisition of TransferZero in 2016, and the acquisition was very successful. Now we have an office in Spain and use it as a base. The whole process was very smooth and it is also a very beautiful story.

The second time was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Nigeria crisis that we talked about earlier hit. At the time, 90% of our volume came from Nigeria, and suddenly Nigeria closed down its channels, and we had to diversify our business quickly. We did two things: one was to expand into French-speaking Africa, and the other was to acquire a company in South Africa. This company was also a customer of ours, and the acquisition process was very natural, we got a good price, and the team on top of that was great. We integrated their team of about 50 people, and since then we have become one of the largest remittance processors in South Africa.

We are still focused on the remittance sector. We actually did some cryptocurrency-related transactions in South Africa in the early days. At that time, the market was in a regulatory gray area. Sometimes it was regulated, and sometimes it was not regulated. Sometimes the regulators said that they did not want companies doing remittances to get involved in crypto transactions, but in fact there were some legal loopholes. So our strategy in South Africa has always been very cautious and conservative. It can be said that we never really "pressed the start button", but more on the sidelines. South Africa is a country with a very hot crypto market. We did participate in some in the early days, but when the South African Reserve Bank's position became clearer, we decided not to get involved in any business that might be in the gray area.

Laura Shen: I remember you were also involved in FTX’s payment services in Africa, and it seemed that there was a bit of a misunderstanding when it went bankrupt—there were some misunderstandings about your role. Can you explain this experience?

Elizabeth: Yeah, my resume is already like a biography with too many chapters, and this chapter is completely unnecessary, to be honest, and it's really confusing. When we announced our partnership with FTX, the network will never forget it - there are still some promotional materials with the FTX Africa logo on the Internet. We had high hopes for this company at the time and thought they could provide financial support for regulatory advancement in Africa. They are indeed actively lobbying a lot of banks, and their compliance team is very active, going deep into four, five, or six countries to discuss the legalization of crypto derivatives with local regulators.

This is very attractive to us because the cost of obtaining licenses in multiple countries is very high. It is not like a North American trading platform, where you get licenses in Canada and the United States and that’s it, and at most you have to apply state by state. But we have to deal with French-speaking regions, English-speaking regions, South America, South Africa... For a startup, it is really too much of a burden.

So when FTX entered this market and was willing to exert its efforts at the regulatory level, lobby the central bank, and strive for securities and futures licenses, we supported it and signed a cooperation agreement to help them promote their business online in several markets. But when FTX collapsed, everything collapsed, and we were also affected.

We spent a lot of time cleaning up their messes, re-communicating with regulators, customers, and partners to explain what our relationship was. This was a huge restructuring and an emotional blow for us, because we have been working hard to prove that African companies can operate legally and compliantly and stand on the right side of the law.

We spent a lot of time lobbying regulators and actively cooperating with policies. We never wanted to skirt the rules, and we didn’t want to go online rashly when the regulations were unclear. But the collapse of FTX implicated everyone who had anything to do with it, making them look like “accomplices”, and the outside world’s trust disappeared overnight.

It was a very difficult time for us, and we spent a lot of energy rebuilding trust. Fortunately, many customers and partners eventually came back. But the environment was completely different - many banks closed one after another, Silvergate collapsed, Reserve Trust collapsed, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed... It was a series of chain explosions, and financing almost stopped.

It was a very difficult time. If we were a new company, we might not have survived. But because we had been through so much, we finally made it through and achieved our current beautiful exit (M&A or IPO).

Laura Shen: Let’s talk about this exit, how was this deal negotiated, and also introduce who dLocal is.

Elizabeth: dLocal is a company that has achieved great success in its home region and is a leader in what it specializes in. They started in Uruguay, a small country in central South America, but full of innovative spirit.

Initially, their business model was to "buy local currency," which is a foreign exchange term. They bought local currency from merchants and sold hard currencies such as dollars and euros to payment processors. For example, companies like Netflix and Alibaba received local currency payments from users in the local area, and they needed to exchange these currencies for dollars or euros. dLocal did this very well and quickly expanded to several core markets such as Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.

They then took off and even successfully listed on the Nasdaq, which is very admirable and became one of the earliest unicorn cases in the region. Their performance can be said to be a "home run".

Over the years, they have tried to enter the African market, just like other global south companies from Asia and Latin America. Many global companies have said they want to enter Africa, but for many years, "Africa is always two years away" - they say this every year. So we haven't actually seen those North American or European companies really set foot in Africa, the only exception is probably Stripe's acquisition of Paystack, which they knew when they were still in YC (startup incubator). But even so, we should applaud Stripe for actually doing it.

Many other companies only talk but do not really invest resources. In recent years, we have begun to see some Asian companies and a few Latin American companies really start to invest heavily in Africa, and dLocal is one of them.

We initially maintained a cooperative relationship with them, in the beginning it was a model of client and service provider. Later we gradually deepened the cooperative relationship, and things went smoothly. This time they invested in us and planned to formally acquire the company after regulatory approval, which is very exciting for us. This means that maybe we don’t need to "go north" to seek development momentum anymore, maybe the power of the global south is strong enough.

And this is exactly what resonated most deeply in my heart - the Global South actually has great potential. It can not only operate in compliance with regulations, but also conduct cross-border business. Moreover, the innovation here is not "overtaking on a curve", but a real upgrade and iteration based on the existing foundation. It is a constructive innovation that inherits the existing energy.

Laura Shen: Will your role in the company change going forward? Or will it remain largely the same? What does all this mean to you?

Elizabeth: At this point, my role has not changed. We are still waiting for regulatory approval, the company's products are still online, customers are still active, and the products are constantly iterating. We have a lot of synergies with the dLocal team in terms of cooperation, such as partner networks and transaction interoperability. They are actually one of our largest transaction partners, which is very exciting.

In addition, dLocal’s investment is also very timely for us, especially after a long period of “fintech capital shortage”. It is really rare to get capital support now, and it is also very valuable to have an important trading partner. More importantly, they have rich experience in local collection and merchant payment processing, which complements our business - we serve more buyers of local currencies, such as remittance companies and payment companies, while they mainly serve the “sellers” of currency, that is, various merchants.

So it's like a perfect marriage, both sides have their own strengths and the synergy is very natural.

The relationship between stablecoins and fintech

Laura Shen: OK, let's talk about more macro topics, such as cryptocurrency and Asia, and the integration between stablecoins, cryptocurrencies, and financial technology. In my opinion, the United States is gradually entering a new stage. Although these fields seem to be competing, they are actually entering the market from different angles and may gradually merge in the future.

But I think that this process may have already happened in Africa. You must have witnessed this evolution firsthand. I would like to hear your views on these different types of players - for example, what advantages do you think they have? How do they compete or coexist in the end?

For example, let me give you an example. Maybe fintech companies have an advantage in compliance because they have more banking partners? And pure crypto companies may be more technologically savvy and more innovative? What trends have you observed in this competitive landscape? How do these trends affect different market participants?

Elizabeth: First of all, I no longer divide companies into two categories: "crypto-savvy" and "crypto-non-savvy". At least among emerging fintech companies, what I see is that they basically have crypto knowledge. I have hardly seen any new fintech companies say, "We don't touch crypto, we don't do this." Of course, some traditional companies still say this, just like some startups now say "We don't do AI" - but you know, they still use it in some links, especially young employees, who have been exposed to and proficient in using these technologies during college.

So the entrepreneurial growth we see today cannot be completely unrelated to crypto. The old generation of companies still exist, for example, I won’t mention Airwallex by name, their founder publicly stated some time ago that he was not interested in crypto and did not want to get involved in this field. But I think the new generation of entrepreneurs are becoming more mature and pragmatic in this regard.

Especially now that the US has introduced new legislation, banks' attitudes have changed a lot, and they are more open to working with companies involved in crypto. On the one hand, it's because more and more people are using crypto, and it's no longer a marginal behavior; on the other hand, it's because they have to accept reality. This is no longer the era of "Elizabeth is doing Pesa in the corner, and no one talks to you about crypto."

In the past, when I went to conferences, I might be the only guest speaker talking about crypto, and everyone looked at me like, "What the hell is this person doing?" I really felt like an outsider. But now it's different - no matter where you go, everyone is using it. I recently went to a Money20/20 conference, and crypto was everywhere. This shows that banks no longer have a reason to reject it, and investors can no longer say "I don't invest in crypto", because at the end of the day, every company is more or less involved in some crypto elements. This is the biggest change.

I also observed that Asia is becoming more and more influential. Many of the goods imported into Africa actually come from Asia, such as medicines, daily necessities, and electronic products. One of our clients is one of the largest importers of mobile phone equipment in Africa, and the amount of accessories they import from China is amazing.

The real drivers of demand for technology applications are the exporters who dominate the market. If a Chinese supplier says, "I only accept QR code payments" or "Please use a certain app to pay," then customers in Africa will come to us and ask for help with the payment process. Therefore, the demand is actually transmitted from the "seller's market."

I find this very interesting and exciting, and it is completely different from the story path that many people imagine.

Laura Shen: So in a sense, you started with "crypto + mobile payment" and then gradually evolved into a "crypto + financial technology" company. Traditional financial technology companies started with "Fintech" and gradually evolved into "Fintech + crypto". Everyone actually entered the same competitive field from different paths, right?

Elizabeth: First of all, we have to remember that mobile payment itself is actually the earliest financial technology (Fintech). At that time, people who engaged in mobile payment at the conference were "outliers". They would say, "I have an MIS management system" - that's what it was called at the time. And they were unwilling to use that kind of mobile wallet. For example, when we entered Senegal in 2015, there was not even legislation on mobile payment wallets in the local area. It was only gradually introduced later.

Therefore, mobile payment is essentially a form of Fintech, but it is attached to USSD (non-smartphone communication protocol) or SIM card. Later, financial technology began to enter the web version and online stage, and many companies also used Chinese smartphones to directly embed hardware systems or operate purely online.

Now we see it moving towards the Metaverse and even further into the future. But in essence, they are still doing the same basic financial actions: lending, transferring, saving, and paying. These core services have not changed, but how you access them has changed - it may be through telephone lines, the Internet, blockchain, or even the Metaverse. No matter how the channels change, the core products are still the same.

I think that as long as the infrastructure is not forcibly controlled by the government (such as state-owned telecommunications companies or Internet service providers), the barriers to entry into this field will become lower and lower. This also means that market competition will become more and more intense, and there will be more and more participants.

In the past, there might be only one mobile payment service provider covering 10 countries in a region; but now, there are thousands of companies making their own mobile financial apps, and even more companies have moved to the blockchain or even the metaverse. This market opening process is very exciting.

Laura Shen: In this field, almost all companies are providing similar services, and even their backend operation models are similar. Where do you think the competition will ultimately focus? Will it become a pure price war? Or will it be a competition of efficiency? What factors determine who will be the winner and who will be eliminated?

Elizabeth: No matter which company it is, it still has to touch the local currency at some point. Because we haven't reached an era where "everyone pays rent with cryptocurrency", right? Now you may be able to transfer money with cryptocurrency, but you still have to pay in local currency in the end; you can also transfer money through mobile payment, but the landing is still in local currency. We are still in an era of "local currency economy" - let's mark it, this is June 2025. Maybe things will change in a few years, but this is the case now.

When you are doing currency exchange transactions, whoever has the most liquidity wins. So the core of the competition is: who has the most liquidity on the platform, the most companies frequently trade on the platform - so that the transaction will not be "up and down", the slippage is smaller, and the quotation is more accurate.

The logic is simple. You will see many new players entering the market, but they may not necessarily get customers. So where do customers come from? The reality is that many of these customers are regulated institutions, and the onboarding process is very slow. Therefore, whoever can complete the compliant access of customers the fastest will have an advantage.

The technical integration of these customers is also very complicated. For example, some customers need four or five development cycles or even longer to complete the API connection. Therefore, whoever has the strongest engineering team and can successfully complete the integration will be more competitive.

In addition, if you have compliance issues, the bank will immediately close the door on you. On the other hand, if you have very strong compliance capabilities, banks are more willing to cooperate. So now it becomes whoever has the strongest compliance will win.

In the final analysis, these things are actually the basic skills of a good company: customer relationships, compliance capabilities, sales processes, access efficiency. These are the core. It is not about which company uses what cool technology - now everyone's technology is becoming more and more similar, and what really makes the difference is these operational fundamentals.

I often say this, and some people will say, "Elizabeth is always pouring cold water on these fast-growing, innovative companies." But what I want to say is that Africa has infrastructure, real people, and rules. This is not a market where you can just come and do whatever you want and break all the rules.

Because you will eventually land on the local currency, which is operated through the banking system and is regulated by the government. Under this reality, whether you want "everything to be encrypted" in the future or not, before that day comes, you must participate in the game of "local currency economy", which requires the company to have solid fundamentals and a good governance structure.

Laura Shen: I would like to add a point before asking the next question - it sounds like your acquisition with dLocal is actually to enhance overall liquidity, right? This should be one of the most critical strategic considerations behind you.

Next, I would like to ask you about the current use of stablecoins by users or businesses in these countries. How do you observe them making decisions between using stablecoins, mobile payments, local fiat currencies, or cryptocurrencies in a broader sense? What roles do these different tools play in their lives and operations?

Elizabeth: This is a very good question. I have been saying for many years that mobile payments actually perform very well in some countries. For example, in some countries, the mobile payment penetration rate can reach more than 95% of the entire economy, of course, it will fluctuate according to the season and time.

In these countries, it is difficult to promote the use of cryptocurrencies for domestic payments, especially small peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, because mobile payments have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, work well, and users are accustomed to using it. Not only is it widely used, but it also has various discounts and convenient conditions, making it difficult to be replaced.

But when it comes to cross-border payments, that is, remittances from one country to another, then cryptocurrencies or "Internet wallets" have a lot of use. For example, you may have a great digital wallet in Nigeria, provided by a local fintech company, but if the company does not successfully expand its wallet services to Kenya, then you will not be able to send money from Nigeria to Kenya. For example, if it is not connected to a wallet in China, then you will not be able to communicate between China and Africa.

Many people overlook this point: if you want to make cross-border payments, you actually need to set up physical companies in various countries, pay taxes, and build local compliance structures. This is a very heavy infrastructure work. The advantage of cryptocurrency is that it bypasses these obstacles and can be sent globally without being restricted by national borders.

But then again, if you eventually want to exchange your cryptocurrency back into fiat currency, you still need "deposit" and "withdrawal" channels (on-ramp/off-ramp), and these infrastructures must still be built.

So our observations are:

For small amount P2P payments in a local country, if the country is already a "mobile payment country", people will basically choose mobile payment as the first choice, such as Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya and other countries.

However, in countries like Nigeria and South Africa, the popularity of mobile payments is not that high, but their banking systems are very advanced. For example, Nigeria's NIPS (National Payment System) can be cleared 7 days a week, and South Africa's clearing system is also very efficient. Therefore, in these countries, local payments are more inclined to use bank transfers.

If it comes to intra-Africa payments, it is more complicated. The traditional Swift cross-border banking system is still in use, but there are many emerging alternatives, such as services provided by fintech companies, some of which use cryptocurrencies, some use pooling mechanisms like ours, and some use broker models.

Although it is difficult to have accurate statistics at present, after all, Africa's informal economy is very large, but we have indeed become more and more competitive in this area.

Laura Shen: There has been a wave of "stablecoin craze" in the United States recently. I am curious about your opinion. For example, Circle has just completed its IPO. I remember that its stock price was around $240 recently, which is significantly higher than the issue price. At the same time, the United States may soon introduce legislation related to stablecoins.

Based on your experience, what do you think of the current wave of development in the United States? How do you think the competitive landscape of stablecoins will evolve? What impact will this increase in popularity bring?

Elizabeth: Well, actually many of my clients’ trading partners are in Asia, not the United States, so they are more concerned about stablecoins that can be settled in Asia.

Laura Shen：Are they still using US dollars or other currencies?

Elizabeth: Yes, it is mainly USDT at present, and many transactions are completed through USDT. Will it change in the future? Maybe, I can't say. But the reality is that now they mainly import from Asia, not from the United States.

But if you want to make a dollar payment outside of Asia, such as sending money to Europe or the United States, you will rely on the US banking system, and these banks obviously prefer USDC rather than USDT. So the world is now a bit "divided" - different regions use different stablecoins, and we are right in the middle of this gap.

We have to operate according to the actual trade flow, and currently the trade volume between Africa and Asia is the largest and continues to grow. So we can't imagine that 100% of the world only uses US-dominated stablecoins (such as USDC) and completely ignores Asia's usage preferences.

Of course, we still use the services of many American banks, and we do have many customers who need to transfer money to American and European banks, but that’s not all.

Laura Shen: So in summary, USDT is more commonly used for payment paths that bypass the United States or do not go through the United States, while USDC is more suitable for connecting to the US or US-dominated banking system? It sounds like most people understand it this way now.

There has also been recent speculation that China may promote the implementation of the digital yuan (e-CNY) overseas, especially in regions such as Africa where Chinese companies are active. For example, China may say, "If you want to do business with us, you have to pay with digital yuan." Do you see any signs of this at the moment? Are there any related signs?

Elizabeth: I can only provide some personal experience, after all, there are no specific statistics. But for example, I moved to Nigeria in 2015. At that time, I often went to the market for half a year and found that many vendors used Chinese mobile phones and installed Chinese native apps. They even sent messages to suppliers directly in Chinese.

Many of these merchants knew four or five languages, so this was not an obstacle for them. At that time, many people traveled to and from Guangzhou, and some people in the area called that area "Chocolate City" or "Mong Kok". In short, there were a large number of Nigerians traveling frequently between China and Africa.

I also know quite a few young people in West Africa who studied in China, and even our company has quite a few job applicants who studied in China. Obviously, China is their largest trading partner, so you will naturally speak their language, use their applications, and use their preferred payment methods - this is very reasonable, and it is not "reinventing the rules" at all. This is the normal operating logic of global business. So we have actually seen this trend a long time ago.

When I lived in Senegal, I met many people who had studied in China. I think the connection between China and Africa is getting stronger at the government level. For example, China once held a sovereign bond issued by Zambia in local currency, which was one of the earliest examples of major countries holding local currency bonds in Africa, and it was denominated in RMB. Later, there was a large-scale currency swap agreement between Kwacha (Zambian currency) and RMB.

I remember that in the early days, there were payment products like Pompey Wallet that were used with handheld devices, and many people began to turn to this new tool. So I believe this trend will continue.

Laura Shen: But have you observed that the Chinese government is trying to promote their digital RMB (e-CNY) through these business activities in Africa?

Elizabeth: I am not in a position to comment on this. As far as I know, no major customer has actively requested to use the digital RMB.

Laura Shen: Okay. Then my last question - as a female practitioner, I don’t really like to ask other women this question, but you probably guessed what I’m going to ask (laughs).

Elizabeth : Are you asking me how to balance work and life?

Laura Shen: No (laughs), don’t worry, it’s better than that question.

Elizabeth : I thought you were going to say, "Laura, oh my god..."

Laura Shen: Haha, what about questions like "How can I start a business while being a mother?" No, I just want to ask, you mentioned at the beginning of the interview that you might be the first cryptocurrency trading platform founded by women at the time. I just want to hear how you view your journey, because I believe it must be very different from most male peers.

Of course, this topic can be discussed for a long time and there are many dimensions to explore. But I would like to hear more about what is the most direct feeling in your mind right now?

Elizabeth : You know, I'm not just a female founder, I'm also a female mother founder in her thirties. I'm not the kind of female entrepreneur who wears a bikini and does hacker style. I'm more like a "middle-aged female boss" type (laughs). This is already an alternative. I remember the first time I attended an event in the cryptocurrency circle, it was the "Satoshi Roundtable". At that time, they said "We have a party tonight", but when I arrived at the scene, every man was accompanied by three or four girls. And I had to call a nanny to take care of the children, and then sit in the bedroom to exchange Naira for US dollars, and then go back to talk to them about investment.

So this is not just a question of "female identity", but the entire environment that the person is in is very delicate.

I also tried to "fit in" with the circle and told everyone "I'm pretty cool too, let's go out and play together", but deep down it was actually difficult for me to judge where I really belonged.

As a female entrepreneur in the financial industry, if you want to "fit in", you may have to tolerate some words and actions that you would not tolerate from people of the same sex; sometimes you even have to "gender yourself" or default to being gendered, such as "Do you want to go to a nightclub to talk about cooperation?" or "Have a meeting by the pool tonight." If you want to participate, you have to say "Okay, then I'll change into a skirt" or "I'll go to the pool too."

I will always remember one event where a female representative of the European Parliament came to the event. She was wearing formal trousers while everyone else was wearing swimsuits. She said, "I wouldn't wear a swimsuit to the European Parliament, so why would I wear one to an investment forum?" I was in awe of her at the time.

But I also wondered, is this the culture of the tech community, the crypto community, or the US venture capital community? I myself was not sure at the time. Sometimes I set a line, sometimes I didn't; sometimes I participated, sometimes I chose to withdraw. To be honest, that experience was strange and difficult.

We managed to get by as best we could, but I really often felt like I didn’t belong in the “boys club.”

Sometimes they would say, "We really want to help you, we support Africa, we invest not because of you, your product or your data, but because we love Africa as a subject." It is not without help at this time. But in the final analysis, we are an infrastructure company, which is not the model that venture capital likes to support the most. We have to build a lot of on/off-ramps and obtain a lot of licenses. The whole project took thirteen years, which is obviously not the VC rhythm of a quick exit in 3 or 4 years.

So I think that at that time, the market actually paid too little attention to such projects, and not many people really understood it. And I also mistakenly thought that I "integrated" into that crypto community, but in fact, what we did was very different from them, and this kind of misalignment itself was not easy.

Of course, I learned a lot from it. For a while, I had an almost all-female team, and then I gradually added men. We are now 55% female, with many great male allies. We have also won many awards for our team culture.

This became my "safe haven". When I was experiencing chaos and misunderstanding from the outside world, I could always find support in the team, which really helped me a lot.

Laura Shen: Great, Elizabeth. Is there anything I didn’t ask you about that you’d like us to know?

Elizabeth : I would say that one of the hardest parts of the entire entrepreneurial process is actually getting investment in Africa. I have always been very grateful for the support of the early crypto community - their openness to Africa is far greater than traditional technology investors.

I think it was because cryptocurrencies are meant to be global and inclusive, so it was really touching to see so many investors willing to try the African market. We were the first African project in many portfolios, and I’m proud of that. We did a lot of educational work for investors and brought them into the ecosystem. But I think many investors don’t realize how early they got in.

Now after the fintech bubble, some people say, "Oh, we tried Africa, we're going to look elsewhere." But I would say, don't give up on this region, please keep coming back. When you invested, Africa was still in a very early stage - it was not like Silicon Valley, which has a history of 20 or 30 years. Africa needs time.

By the end of this century, most of the world's population will be African. **Now is the best time to understand it in depth and take root. **Of course, don't believe those entrepreneurs who hold a pitch deck and say "we expand to 50 countries a year", but really understand what is needed behind the growth of this continent and how long it will take.

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