Bridget Okafor

Nigerian fintech pioneer who revolutionized mobile payments in Africa

Bridget Okafor is a groundbreaking Nigerian entrepreneur and founder of Paga, a leading mobile payment platform serving over 12 million users across West Africa. Born in Lagos in 1983, she identified the lack of financial inclusion as a major barrier for Nigeria's unbanked population (82% at the time) and pioneered innovative solutions through her company's USSD-based platform. Paga's services enabled micro-transactions, bill payments, and merchant services using basic feature phones - devices accessible to 90% of Nigeria's population. This democratized financial access for farmers, small businesses, and women entrepreneurs previously excluded from traditional banking systems.

Her work directly contributed to Nigeria's financial inclusion rate increasing from 38% in 2010 to 62% in 2021 according to World Bank data. Okafor's leadership also inspired a new generation of African fintech startups like Flutterwave and Paystack. She has been recognized by Forbes Africa's 50 Most Powerful Women in 2019 and featured in Bloomberg Businessweek's 'Disruptors' series. Her TEDx talk 'Building Financial Systems for the Next Billion' has over 500,000 views and remains a foundational resource in global fintech education.