**Africa's Economic Hurdle: Why Our Trade Ambitions Must Clear Payment Infrastructural Bottlenecks** As we celebrate a decade of exponential growth in Africa's tech ecosystem, a stark reality dawns on us. Despite the continent's incredible potential, our capacity to unlock this potential remains hamstrung by outdated payment rails. At the Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi, Wole Ayodele, CEO of Fincra, sounded a clarion call, urging us to shift our focus from optimism to infrastructure. Africa is indeed the fastest-growing continent, boasting a youthful population and a burgeoning workforce. Yet, our commercial landscape remains fragmented, with separate systems in each country. This disconnection is most acutely felt by businesses that operate across borders, such as those with operations in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. Each market brings its own set of rules, currencies, and capital controls, necessitating a fresh start and resulting in higher transaction costs and longer settlement times. For finance teams, managing currency volatility becomes a constant challenge. This diverts their attention from enabling expansion to containing risk. Fincra, a payments company with operations in over 50 markets across Africa and 20 global integrations, is working to resolve this underlying payment infrastructure problem. By moving the continent from fragmentation to federation, Fincra aims to simplify cross-border trade and reduce friction. The payments landscape in Africa is already crowded, with various players vying to reduce friction. However, regulatory divergence and liquidity issues continue to plague cross-border trade. Ayodele's message comes at a time when African founders are rethinking their growth strategies, focusing on profitability and operational resilience. As they scale across Africa, they recognize that managing compliance, liquidity, and settlement risk is paramount. While Fincra's efforts are laudable, Ayodele acknowledges that resolving these structural constraints requires a collective effort. "Federation is not a company project," he emphasizes. "It's an ecosystem decision." For Africa to unlock its full potential, builders, banks, and regulators must align on interoperable payment systems. Only then can we truly harness our demographics and growth trajectory to create a more prosperous future for our continent.