The pandemic has radically transformed how consumers interact with fintech and how it operates. Fintech experienced rapid growth, thanks to digital transformation in 2020.
Mobile apps played a key role in fintech transformation across the globe, especially in regions with unbanked or underbanked populations. According to a report, State of Finance App Marketing 2021 by US-based mobile marketing analytics company, Apps Flyer, finance app installations surged in Sub-Sahara Africa, starting in Q2 2020 with Nigeria having the highest number of fintech app installations in Africa growing at +160%. Other countries in Africa also experienced this growth, with Kenya up 100%, and South Africa rising by 52%.
In Nigeria alone, loan app installations grew by 43.3%, financial services grew by 34.6%, and investment apps by 20.3%. This shows that Nigerians are more interested in loan and investment apps than any other type of fintech app.
Another factor for the rise in fintech app installation is marketing. Since Q2 2020, when COVID lockdowns began, the number of finance apps investing in marketing increased in all regions. Market spending in Nigeria rose the highest to 150% since the second quarter of 2020. The country’s Cost Per Install (CPI) was up 70% since Q2 2020, leading to a spike in spending.
Other countries like South Africa also saw a significant increase of about 33% since the first quarter of 2020.
According to the report, the high spending in Sub-Sahara Africa was driven by fierce competition as apps employed aggressive marketing tactics.
Globally, Demand for Finance apps worldwide has surged in the last couple of years, with a 132% leap in downloads between Q1 2019 and Q1 2021; this trend is widespread as the average per app trend follows the same path. Finance apps were downloaded 4.6 billion times in 2020 (+15% YoY), according to AppAnnie. App marketers are following suit, upping their investing to meet the heightened demand.
