‘There are 400 million people in sub-Saharan Africa that don’t have formal credit files’: Pngme’s Brendan Playford
- Africa is seeing the launch of a lot of new financial services and fintech.
- That provides an opportunity for companies like Pngme to standardize and support financial data sharing.

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2020 was an interesting year for African financial services. We saw Stripe buy Nigeria’s Paystack, its largest acquisition anywhere, and other firms raise significant venture capital.
Pngme is one of the firms contributing to the next stage of growth on the continent. Brendan Playford is founder and CEO of the firm, which offers a unified financial data API for Africa. As financial services mature, the various platforms, networks and institutional ecosystems need a way to standardize and share their customers’ financial data.
Brendan joins us on the podcast to talk about African fintech and what’s been happening there of late. We talk about where the opportunities are and where the market may head over the next few years. Lastly, we drill down into Pngme’s product offering, strategy, and expansion plans.
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The following excerpts were edited for clarity.
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