The chief executive officer of Letshego Microfinancial Services Namibia, Melvin Hosea Angula, addressed global policymakers this week at the Alliance for Financial Inclusion’s (AFI) Global Policy Forum 2025 in Swakopmund, sharing how AI, digital identity, and microfinance can close the financial inclusion gap in Africa.
Angula’s presentation, titled Leveraging Technology to Improve Supervision and Regulation: The Taamba Maris Case Study, highlighted Namibia’s first instant mobile credit product developed with MTC Maris. He said the platform is transforming access to finance while giving regulators real-time visibility. “We built Taamba Maris not just for speed, but for trust. By embedding safeguards like one loan at a time, transparent pricing, and automated compliance, we have shown that innovation and regulation can successfully coexist,” Angula said.
Taamba Maris uses real-time wallet transaction data and machine learning to approve loans in under 60 seconds with 95% accuracy. Borrowers are protected by loan caps, cooling-off periods and upfront fee disclosures, measures aimed at countering loan shark practices that charge up to 40% per month.
Angula said nearly 500 000 Namibians can now access safer, regulated credit via basic mobile phones, many for the first time. He added that automated reporting and supervisory dashboards give Namfisa and the Bank of Namibia live oversight, marking a regional benchmark for supervisory technology, or SupTech.
He explained that AI readiness differs from business readiness. “Markets with strong regulations and partnerships, even with lower readiness scores, delivered Letshego’s most profitable results,” he said. Letshego is expanding through regional innovation hubs in Nairobi, Accra and Gaborone, aligned with AFI policy frameworks, to replicate safe, people-centred digital finance models.
In closing, Angula urged regulators to establish sandboxes with clear guardrails, invest in SupTech systems for real-time analytics, foster public-private partnerships to accelerate innovation, and build supervisory capacity to manage digital risks. “Technology-enabled supervision doesn’t just reduce risk; it creates trust, transparency, and financial opportunity. With AFI’s global network, every regulator here can leapfrog infrastructure challenges and put people at the centre of digital finance,” he said.
