Dar es Salaam. Despite Tanzania’s impressive strides in expanding access to financial services, speakers at the 13th edition of the Impact Business Breakfast emphasized that true financial inclusion remains elusive without addressing structural gaps in financial literacy, product accessibility, and long-term financing challenges that even cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and digital payments have yet to resolve.
This was highlighted today, June 6, 2025, at the forum, which is held with the aim of bringing together intellectuals to influence and share experiences with like-minded professionals and to cultivate development opportunities.
The event, themed “Revolutionizing Financial Inclusion: The Transformative Power of AI and Digital Payments in Tanzania,” brought together policymakers, fintech leaders, academics, and development experts who all pointed to the same concern, while access has increased, actual usage and impact remain uneven.
“Let’s be honest, what is the level of financial literacy in the country?” asked Omari Issa, Chancellor of the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology. “You have to figure out the root causes before you can address them.”
Issa warned that the dominance of microloans and the lack of sophisticated financial products for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is leaving many stuck in survival mode. “Very few offer long-term loans of 10 years and above. Very few offer USD five million or equivalent and above. These will not help micro enterprises grow,” he said.
He called for a fundamental shift toward equity and long-term funding models. “People are borrowing 100 percent to finance a project. So from day one, the project is not viable,” he added.
Eric Massinda, CEO of the Financial Sector Deepening Trust (FSDT), echoed this, noting that while 76 percent of Tanzanians are now financially included, usage remains low. “Everyone has access, so what? Is it translating into usage? Groceries, health, education, cash is still king,” he said.
Massinda emphasized the need for digital ID systems and alternative credit scoring as tools for deeper inclusion. He pointed to an FSDT pilot program that digitized the records of 10,000 farmers in the Kilombero value chain to help banks evaluate creditworthiness using AI.
“With a little bit of credit, you can enable a small businesswoman to thrive,” he said.
Angelica Pesha, CEO of Mixx by Yas, emphasized the power of collaboration in building inclusive financial ecosystems. She praised Tanzania’s 2014 success in achieving mobile wallet interoperability, saying it had helped grow the sector. “That was the beginning of the industry collaborating to bring in something that has helped the growth of the industry,” she said.
She also underlined the importance of youth inclusion. “With the revolution of having NIDA at birth, we can now create products for young people. They want to learn savings today so that they can build creditworthiness,” she noted.
But collaboration alone isn’t enough. Sosthenes Kewe, Co-Founder of Think Grow Africa and Board Chairperson of TIB Development Bank, challenged regulators to keep up with innovation. “The readiness of the government and the policymakers to sit together with innovators is key,” he said, highlighting the value of regulatory sandboxes that allow testing new ideas in controlled environments.
“AI with the consumer of 2050 in mind, that’s what we need to plan for,” Kewe added, calling on policymakers to anticipate the needs of future economies and industries.
Deputy Governor of the Bank of Tanzania, Sauda Msemo, underscored the government’s role in enabling innovation while ensuring ethical standards. She announced the launch of the Bank of Tanzania’s FinTech regulatory sandbox, which allows innovators to test products under regulatory oversight.
“Ensuring integrity is not a choice, but is a prerequisite for sustainable and well grounded innovations,” Sauda said. “Most of the challenges that we are facing today in financial sector in particular, including those encountered in the provision of digital financial services, are a result of lack of integrity.”
She affirmed the government’s commitment to increasing financial inclusion to at least 85% by 2028, especially among underserved groups such as youth, women, smallholder farmers, and people with disabilities.
