A fintech app doesn’t change lives just because it works. It changes lives when it works for the right people, in the right places, in the right ways. Across emerging markets like Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana, digital finance is expanding faster than ever, yet for many, access still feels like a closed door.
Design is the key. Not sleek interfaces or trendy animations, but systems that listen, adapt, and invite users who’ve never had a reason to trust technology in the first place.This isn’t about innovation for its own sake. It’s about designing products that remove fear, friction, and exclusion. It’s about creating digital bridges for those left behind.
The numbers are stubborn. Over 1.4 billion people remain unbanked globally. Many of them live in emerging markets. Even among those who have accounts, actual usage is low. Why? Because most fintech tools are not designed with them in mind.
Source: 2021 Global Findex Survey
In Nigeria, for example, apps often assume constant internet, English literacy, and individual smartphone ownership. But that’s not the norm for millions. Many users share devices with family, speak multiple languages (often local dialects), and face frequent blackouts or network drops.
These gaps aren’t just technological, they’re experiential. And they can be closed.
Stories from the Ground
At a corner shop in Owerri, a woman named Nneka runs her small retail business using a feature phone and handwritten ledgers. A friend introduces her to a digital wallet that runs on USSD. It takes a few tries to trust it, but after a week, she starts using it to send money and later, access a small working capital loan.
Meanwhile in Nairobi, a street vendor named Brian relies on M-Pesa for all transactions. He’s been using it for years but struggles with managing savings. A local fintech launches a micro-savings feature tailored for informal workers like him, complete with audio guidance and reminders tied to his daily income patterns.
These aren’t edge cases. These are the heart of the market.
What Inclusive Design Actually Looks Like
It doesn’t mean building “lite” versions of products. It means:
- Designing for offline-first or low-data usage.
- Localizing flows beyond translation including tone, format, and expectations.
- Letting users pause and return to a flow without starting over.
- Using voice, audio, or illustrations where text won’t do.
The best design choices come not from assumptions, but from immersion. Walking through markets, watching how people talk about money, and how they work around systems that weren’t built for them.
Two Approaches That Got It Right
Paga built its interface around its agent network, human guides who not only transact, but explain. The result? Adoption across peri-urban Nigeria exploded, especially among first-time digital users.
Source: Google
Moniepoint redesigned its onboarding experience after observing merchants struggle with multi-step forms. By splitting tasks across smaller sessions and reducing required inputs by 30%, it increased rural activation by 67%.
Source: Moniepoint
Neither product was about reinventing the wheel. They just watched the road better.
Where Designers Fit In
Inclusion isn’t a feature request. It’s a design philosophy. Designers must:
- Challenge who a product is being designed for.
- Advocate for user testing beyond urban tech-savvy users.
- Work with local researchers and field agents.
- Build tools that feel familiar, not foreign.
Because ultimately, great design isn’t when users adapt to our tools, it’s when our tools adapt to them.
Financial inclusion will not be achieved by scale alone. It will be achieved by relevance.
The more we treat fintech as a canvas for human-centered systems, shaped by real people, real cultures, real constraints the closer we get to a future where no one is left out because of how they live, speak, or earn.
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