Africa's governments should consider providing citizens with digital identities as one way to minimise regulatory red tape and promote fintech start-up innovation.

Meagan Rabe, Visa's head of digital partnership and ventures in Sub-Saharan Africa, suggested this on the sidelines of the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program's second cohort yesterday in Cape Town.

The event connects African fintech start-ups with mentors to discuss investment opportunities and technology.

In an interview with ITWeb Africa, Rabe discussed how governments should update and improve legislation to accommodate African fintech startups.

According to Rabe, digital identities will be able to serve populations and connect them with their physical addresses.

This, she asserts, will boost credit access in many African countries while also expanding financial products, allowing people to grow and develop further.

Despite the regulation issues, the payments company says it has seen success in terms of investments in most countries besides the usual suspects; Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.

Rabe explains: “That is the Francophone Africa region, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Senegal, etcetera. We have had incredible success with fintechs like Djamo, who launch card programs and were able to digitalise payments when nobody else is digitalising, and the banks haven’t really digitalise, so that region is very exciting.”