Fintech 'frontiers' and the platformed motorcycle

Emergent infrastructures of value creation in African cities

Bibliographic Data

ID4475853
AuthorsLiza Rose Cirolia (0000-0001-5850-2327, University of Cape Town), A Pollio (0000-0001-8099-4452, African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, South Africa Department of Urban and Regional Studies, Polytechnic of Turin, Italy), Rike Sitas (0000-0003-3516-3400, University of Cape Town), Alicia Fortuin (University of Cape Town), Jack Ong''Iro Odeo (0000-0003-3214-5311, Stockholm University), Alexis Gatoni Sebarenzi (0000-0003-4014-5290, University of Geneva)
Year2025
Volume43
Issue4
Pages636-658
Publication date2025-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/02637758241276324
OpenAlexW4402546732
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited85

Concerned with financialized extraction, the exploitation of precarious workers and racialized violence, critical scholars call for greater attention to the coloniality of financial technology (fintech) expansion in Africa. In this article, we echo the utility in foregrounding coloniality, but argue that it should be read as one among multiple, specific, and entangled ways in which fintech is creating new forms of value in the context of Africa's urbanization. To make this case, we focus on the nexus between platforms, motorcycle taxis and fintech. In three different African cities, we observe how fintech maps onto the impulses and desires of the private sector and the state alike to use fintech to enact various forms of value creation. In Nairobi, the motorcycle has become the testbed of assetization experiments that seek to create data-rich and less fuel-dependent economies; in Kigali, the state-led and platform-enabled standardization of motorcycle services intends to create fiscal, planning, and regulatory values; and in Cape Town, legacy supermarket chains enroll motorcycles and fintech offerings to algorithmically integrate urban economies of labor and retail. Tracing these processes illuminates the different rationalities, ingenuities, and technological entanglements that, beyond the endurance of coloniality, shape Africa's fintech moment

Business · Economic geography · Geography · Industrial organization · Regional science · Value (mathematics · Value creation · Computer Science · FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance · Innovation and Socioeconomic Development · Urban and Rural Development Challenges