The future of African finance isn’t banks, it’s tokenization | Opinion
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360 million adults in Sub-Saharan Africa don’t have access to any bank account — roughly 17% of the global unbanked population concentrated in a single continent. What’s more, Africa’s top ten banks averaged $867 million in profit in 2024 — yet, they only served the elite, while the rest of the population remained completely locked out.
- Banks failed Africa — chasing profits while leaving 360M people unbanked. Mobile money has already proved that Africans adopt digital finance when it works for them.
- Tokenization is the next leap — turning gold, farmland, and commodities into digital assets people can own and trade directly from their phones.
- Wealth that holds value — tokenized gold protects savings from inflation and currency collapse, opening real paths to middle-class growth.
- Trust is everything — proof of reserves and transparent tracking ensure tokenization doesn’t repeat FTX’s mistakes and builds lasting confidence.
Maximum profits, minimum reach — that’s African banking in four words. And this broken model won’t suddenly start working. Africa needs to skip banks altogether. In fact, countries in Asia faced the same problem and have successfully embraced tokenization as a parallel financial system to reduce the number of their unbanked citizens.
Why shouldn’t Africa take the same path?
The infrastructure for tokenization already exists
Africa already has the infrastructure to build a parallel financial system. The continent processed $1.1 trillion in mobile money transactions in 2024, accounting for 65% of global mobile money transaction value. Mobile money succeeded where banks failed — it met people where they were, with the technology they already had. Now, tokenization takes that same playbook and applies it to actual assets.
Consider an artisanal miner in Tanzania. Up to 40% of Africa’s gold is undeclared, with an estimated $30 billion smuggled annually, largely because small-scale miners don’t have access to formal markets. Tokenization changes that equation. By representing physical gold digitally on secure blockchain platforms, tokenization enables traceable, near-instant cross-border trade.
The same smartphone that powers mobile money will be able to hold fractional ownership in gold, copper mines, or agricultural commodities.
And projects across the continent already prove tokenization works for Africa’s unbanked populations.
For example, Kenya’s “One Million Avocados” project now tokenizes entire orchards and gives farmers access to capital, training, and direct market connections. Ghana’s new Gold Board is introducing blockchain-based tracking to formalize production and curb smuggling.
Tokenization won’t need bank branches to reach everyone. The general public would access assets directly through their phones — the same phones they already use for mobile money.
The missing piece in Africa’s wealth equation
Getting a bank account doesn’t build wealth when your currency loses 30% annually. The path from working class to middle class becomes a treadmill that never stops. You earn more but somehow afford less. Your savings evaporate through no fault of your own. The wealthy already know the answer: own gold.
But most people don’t understand what makes gold so powerful. This metal appreciated 1,000% since 2000, 100% over the past five years, and 35% since January alone. Unlike abstract investments, you can claim physical gold at your doorstep — tangible wealth you actually hold.
When regulated, insured, and audited platforms tokenize gold, they combine centuries of proven value with modern safeguards. The result is accessible and secure wealth protection. Yet traditional barriers meant only the wealthy could access these benefits.
Gold has traditionally been a hedge against inflation, market instability, and currency devaluation. And tokenization can democratize this protection. Our flagship product at Ubuntu Tribe, GIFT Gold, represents just 1 milligram of gold — worth about 10 US cents. A teacher in Ghana can now save in gold. A small business owner in Kenya can preserve capital between harvests.
Once people can protect what they earn, they start building real wealth. Studies show that gold and silver provide effective hedging against inflation risks in African countries like Ghana, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania.
When savings hold their value, people can actually think about tomorrow. They invest in businesses, buy property, and fund education. The African Development Bank projects the middle class will grow from 355 million in 2010 to 1.1 billion by 2060 — but only if these aspiring millions can protect what they earn.
Tokenization without proof is just digital fraud
Tokenization without transparency is just FTX with extra steps. FTX owed creditors at least $8 billion when it collapsed, with customer funds mysteriously vanishing into accounts controlled by Alameda Research. African investors lost millions. The same trust problem that killed FTX now threatens every tokenized asset — unless we build differently.
Proof of reserve provides both the growing DeFi ecosystem and the traditional financial system with a way to boost the transparency of their operations through definitive on-chain proof of any asset’s true collateralization. Every tokenized gold certificate, every fractional mine ownership, every agricultural commodity token needs verifiable backing. Real-time cryptographic proof replaces promises and outdated quarterly audits.
And we’ve implemented this in Ubuntu Tribe. Our Track-n-Trace system provides real-time gold logistics and supply chain transparency, publicly accessible 24/7, with proof of reserves from trusted institutions. Anyone can verify that their GIFT tokens represent actual gold in Swiss, German, or Dubai vaults. The system eliminates black boxes and “trust us” statements entirely.
Over a dozen of the world’s largest exchanges now implement proof of reserves, with the majority beginning after the collapse of the FTX exchange in 2022.
Africa learned this lesson the hard way. Thousands of African investors lost money in the FTX crash — the exchange had over 100,000 customers in Africa when it collapsed. Proof of reserves can’t be optional; it has to be the foundation in rebuilding trust in digital assets across the continent.
The path forward is already clear
Banks had their chance. They chose record profits over 360 million potential customers. They built branches in wealthy neighborhoods while rural communities stored cash under mattresses. That model won’t suddenly change — banks make too much money from exclusion to embrace inclusion.
Tokenization offers Africa a different path. Not a better banking system, but a replacement for banks entirely. Mobile money proved Africans will adopt digital finance when it actually serves them. Now, tokenized assets turn that same infrastructure into real wealth-building tools. Gold that anyone can own. Commodities that farmers can trade. Savings that hold value against currency collapse.
