Best Poster Award for Kulondwa Safari at INFINITI Dubai

On 14 December 2025, Kulondwa Safari received the Best Poster Award for his paper titled “Why Do Sub-Saharan African Small, Medium, and Large Enterprises Use FinTech Solutions as Payment Methods?” at the INFINITI DUBAI 2025 Conference, organized by the Future Finance and Economics Association at the University of Birmingham Dubai.

Despite the recent growth of the FinTech sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the use of FinTech payments among SMEs and large enterprises remains low. The paper is grounded in the Technology-Organization-Environment theoretical framework. Using data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey covering 8,732 SMEs and large enterprises across 13 SSA countries, the study shows that access to digital infrastructure, export activities, leadership experience, foreign ownership, and firm size positively influence the adoption of FinTech payment solutions.

The paper suggests that policymakers should:

• promote digital payment literacy and awareness campaigns (particularly for smaller enterprises), 
• invest in digital infrastructure in underserved and rural areas, 
• introduce regulations to reduce cost-related barriers (such as capping transaction fees), 
• and implement policies to discourage excessive cash usage in business transactions.