Bitcoin May Be the Solution to Africa's Broken Financial System

A recent report suggests that the lack of traditional financial infrastructure makes Africa a place where cryptocurrency adoption is likely.

The report - shared with Cointelegraph by a Luno representative on May 27 - sheds light on Africa's financial infrastructure and the role that cryptocurrencies play in it.

One use case for crypto assets in Africa is remittance, which currently forms an important source of income for local families.

According to a World Bank report published in April, expats sent around $48 billion back to families in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2019 alone.

According to World Bank data, in Sub-Saharan Africa there are over 56% less commercial bank branches per 100,000 adults than the world average.

Bitcoin-enabled services attempting to tackle those issues already exist in Africa.

This shows how the innovation brought on by this Bitcoin-enabled service was recognized worldwide, also outside Africa.

"Crypto use in Africa will continue to rise, and it is only a matter of time until digital currencies will become ubiquitous. Given how readily they've adopted crypto, I would expect countries in Africa to be the first to make the full transition from their traditional financial systems towards crypto."

Swanepoel claims that Luno was the first such company to operate in Africa and currently has African offices based in Lagos, Cape Town and Johannesburg.

"Africa is one of, if not the biggest early adopter of cryptocurrencies, and a very important market to us, being home to approximately three fourths of our customer base. We've seen high rates of adoption in the likes of Kenya and Ghana specifically, but we're always looking to expand our reach and welcome more customers across the continent. A priority for us has always been education, not just buying and selling cryptocurrencies, and that's something we'll continue to do, especially in the territories in Africa that we know have been ravaged by broken financial systems."