05 May Identity, Access and Trust: Building a People-First Digital Future for Africa

Across the Innovation City community, one tension is becoming harder to ignore: access is now decided in real time, but identity systems are still built for a slower world.

Decisions about risk and access are increasingly driven by live data, not historical records, yet the way we establish identity hasn’t kept up.

At the same time, access to financial services is shifting. It is no longer just about getting in, but about whether your behaviour and data are understood and trusted once you’re there.

That tension is becoming harder to ignore because identity is no longer just a layer in the system; it is what determines participation.

Leapfrogging legacy systems

Africa has often been described as a continent that leapfrogs.

In many ways, that’s true. Mobile adoption, mobile money, and platform-based services have all scaled without following the traditional path taken in more developed markets.

But identity is different.

It sits underneath everything; payments, banking, healthcare, employment, and it is harder to rebuild because it carries risk. If identity systems are too slow or rigid, they exclude people. If they are too loose, they open the door to fraud.

That tension between access and risk is now one of the defining challenges for digital systems across the continent, and one that platforms like Sumsub are increasingly addressing by moving beyond one-time verification to continuous identity monitoring.

As Tom Schoon, Head of Strategic Partnerships for Africa at Sumsub, explains:

“Africa has a real opportunity to build identity systems without being locked into legacy infrastructure. But that only works if regulation and innovation move together. Otherwise, you either slow down access or introduce risk at scale.”

What is starting to emerge instead is a more flexible approach. Identity is no longer treated as a once-off check during onboarding, but as something that is continuously assessed using different signals over time.

The “Great Unbanking” – losing access, not just lacking it

For years, the focus has been on bringing people into the financial system.

That still matters. But it is no longer the full picture.

What we are starting to see is a different kind of problem, people gaining access, and then losing it.

Accounts are flagged. Transactions are blocked. Users are locked out, often with very little explanation. In a digital system, exclusion can happen after onboarding just as easily as before.

This is where the idea of a “Great Unbanking” becomes useful, and where continuous identity verification, rather than one-time checks, becomes critical.

“Being unbanked in 2030 won’t necessarily mean you never had access,” says Tom Schoon. “It may mean you lost it because systems couldn’t confidently verify or trust your identity in real time.”

That shift matters, because it changes how we think about inclusion. It is no longer just about entry into the system, but about staying in it.

Redefining inclusion as a trust problem

One of the clearest insights from recent conversations at Innovation City is that traditional ways of measuring trust are no longer enough.

Credit scores, static profiles, and once-off checks miss too much of what actually matters. In many cases, real behaviour – how people transact, repay, and interact with services, tells a far more accurate story.

We are already seeing this play out. Retailers are becoming powerful financial players because they sit on real-time data. Alternative data is starting to outperform traditional scoring for people with limited credit histories. And financial products are being built around access and usage, rather than ownership.

This shift toward continuous, real-time trust is already shaping how identity verification platforms like Sumsub are being built and adopted across markets.

As Tom Schoon puts it: “Trust isn’t built at onboarding anymore. It’s built over time, through behaviour and context. That’s what allows systems to scale without excluding legitimate users.”

This is also where the idea of digital dignity becomes more practical.

In simple terms, it means people should be able to move through digital systems without being unfairly blocked, misjudged, or excluded, and with some level of clarity about how decisions affecting them are made.

Why this matters now

Across the Innovation City community, these challenges are already showing up.

Founders are building products that rely on real-time payments and instant onboarding. Teams are expanding across multiple markets, each with its own regulatory requirements. At the same time, fraud is becoming more sophisticated, faster, and harder to detect, requiring identity systems that can respond just as quickly.

The result is a constant balancing act: Move too slowly, and you lose users. Move too fast, and you increase risk.

The only way through is to rethink how identity, access, and trust are built, not as separate layers, but as part of the same system, working in real time.

Join the conversation

This is exactly the conversation we’re continuing in partnership with Sumsub.

Our event: The Great Unbanking Debate: Identity, Access & Trust in African Markets, brings together fintech operators, banks, and platform builders to unpack a question that’s becoming increasingly urgent: who gets access to the financial system and who doesn’t?

As fraud becomes more massive and complex, and regulation struggles to keep pace, identity is no longer just a compliance step. It is the gateway to participation.

This session will focus on where identity systems are breaking today, how trust is being built in real time, and what it actually takes to scale across African markets without locking out legitimate users.

It’s a curated, invite-only evening designed to bring the right people into the room, with a sharp, no-filter panel, followed by drinks, food, and meaningful networking with decision-makers across fintech, banking, and digital platforms.

21 May | 18:00–21:30 | Innovation City Cape Town

If you’re building in fintech, platforms, or any system that depends on trust at scale, this is one to be in the room for.

Apply to join us here→ https://luma.com/4pxe6ofm?tk=AAEP6I