Key Metrics Every African Fintech Should Track

African fintechs operate in one of the world’s most dynamic and complex financial environments. Payments are fragmented, regulations differ by market, infrastructure reliability varies, and user behavior is deeply local. In this context, growth alone is not a signal of health.

What separates resilient fintechs from fragile ones is measurement discipline.

Tracking the right metrics helps founders and operators answer hard questions early:

• Are we growing sustainably—or masking risk?
• Is expansion improving margins—or adding hidden complexity?
• Are users actually benefiting—or just transacting once?

This article outlines the key metrics every African fintech should track, grouped by function, with practical guidance on how to use them to make better decisions.

1. Transaction Success Rate (TSR)

What it is:
The percentage of initiated transactions that complete successfully.

Why it matters in Africa:
Network instability, bank downtime, and fragmented rails make failures common—and costly.

How to use it:

• Track by payment method (cards, mobile money, transfers)
• Track by country and provider
• Investigate drops immediately

Healthy range:
90–98%, depending on rail and market

Low TSR erodes trust faster than any UX issue.

2. Transaction Volume (TPV) With Context

What it is:
Total Payment Volume processed over a period.

Why it matters:
TPV shows scale—but not quality.

How to use it properly:

• Segment TPV by country, merchant type, and payment rail
• Track TPV per active customer
• Pair with margin and cost metrics

High TPV with poor margins or high failure rates is a warning sign.

3. Active Users (MAU / DAU), Not Just Registrations

What it is:
Monthly or daily active users performing meaningful actions.

Why it matters:
In many African markets, sign-ups are easy. Retention is hard.

How to define “active”:

• Completed payment
• Wallet balance change
• Merchant settlement
• API call (for B2B fintechs)

Registrations without activity are noise.

4. Retention by Market

What it is:
The percentage of users who remain active after 30, 60, or 90 days.

Why it matters:
Behavior varies dramatically across countries.

How to use it:

• Track retention per country and use case
• Compare new vs mature markets
• Identify where localization is failing

A fintech can be healthy in Nigeria and struggling in Kenya—metrics must show that.

5. Cost per Transaction (CPT)

What it is:
Total operational cost divided by the number of transactions.

Why it matters:
African fintech margins are thin. Scale only helps if CPT decreases.

What to include:

• Provider fees
• Infrastructure costs
• Fraud losses
• Ops and reconciliation overhead

If CPT rises with volume, the model will break.

6. Gross Margin by Product and Country

What it is:
Revenue minus direct costs, segmented clearly.

Why it matters:
Cross-subsidization hides problems.

How to use it:

• Track margins by product (payments, wallets, payouts)
• Track margins by country
• Kill or fix loss-leading flows early

Strong fintechs know exactly where they make money—and where they don’t.

7. Settlement Time (T+X)

What it is:
How long does it take for funds to reach merchants or users?

Why it matters:
Cash is instant. Digital must feel close to that.

How to use it:

• Track promised vs actual settlement
• Segment by rail and country
• Monitor delays as churn predictors

Long or unpredictable settlement pushes users back to cash.

8. Liquidity Coverage Ratio (Operational)

What it is:
Your ability to meet settlement obligations without stress.

Why it matters:
Fintech failures often start as liquidity issues—not tech issues.

How to use it:

• Model worst-case settlement days
• Track float vs obligations
• Stress-test expansion scenarios

Liquidity blind spots are fatal at scale.

9. Fraud Rate and False Positives

What it is:
Fraud losses as a percentage of TPV—and how often good transactions are blocked.

Why it matters:
Overblocking hurts growth. Underblocking hurts trust.

How to use it:

• Track fraud by payment type and geography
• Track false positives separately
• Tune rules continuously

Healthy fintechs balance protection and accessibility.

10. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) by Channel

What it is:
Total acquisition spend divided by new active customers.

Why it matters:
Distribution costs differ massively across African markets.

How to use it:

• Track CAC by channel (agents, partnerships, digital)
• Pair CAC with retention and TPV per user
• Cut channels that don’t pay back

Low CAC with low retention is a trap.

11. Lifetime Value (LTV)

What it is:
Expected net revenue from a customer over time.

Why it matters:
Sustainable fintechs grow LTV faster than CAC.

How to use it:

• Segment LTV by country and product
• Use real retention data, not assumptions
• Adjust expansion priorities accordingly

Africa rewards patience—LTV often grows slowly but steadily.

12. API Reliability (for B2B Fintechs)

What it is:
Uptime, latency, and error rates of developer-facing systems.

Why it matters:
If you power other businesses, your downtime becomes their downtime.

How to use it:

• Track uptime by endpoint
• Monitor latency spikes
• Correlate incidents with churn

Infrastructure fintechs live or die by reliability.

13. Merchant Churn Rate

What it is:
Percentage of merchants who stop transacting.

Why it matters:
Merchant churn is expensive and often silent.

How to use it:

• Track churn by onboarding cohort
• Correlate with settlement delays or failures
• Proactively engage at-risk merchants

Stable merchants are the backbone of cashless ecosystems.

14. Regulatory & Compliance Metrics

What to track:

• KYC completion rate
• Review turnaround time
• Suspicious activity flags
• Audit readiness

Why it matters:
Regulatory friction slows growth if unmanaged.

Metrics turn compliance from a blocker into a process.

15. Expansion Readiness Metrics

Before entering a new market, track:

• Unit economics stability
• Ops load per transaction
• Support tickets per 1,000 txns
• Failure and settlement variance

If core metrics aren’t stable, expansion will magnify problems.

From Metrics to Decisions

Metrics are only useful if they drive action.

Strong African fintechs:

• Review metrics weekly
• Segment aggressively by market
• Kill vanity metrics early
• Tie dashboards to decisions

They don’t ask, “Are we growing?”
They ask, “Are we growing well?”

Conclusion: Measure What Actually Matters

Africa’s fintech opportunity is massive—but unforgiving.

The companies that win will not be those with the loudest growth charts, but those with:

• disciplined measurement,
• market-level visibility,
• and infrastructure-aware KPIs.

Tracking the right metrics doesn’t slow you down.
It keeps you alive long enough to scale.

In African fintech, what you measure determines what you survive.