Crypto Altruism Podcast Episode 97 - Canza Finance - Leveling the playing field for businesses in emerging economies with Web3 and DeFi
In episode 97, we’re excited to welcome Victor Teixeira, Lead Crypto Economist from Canza Finance, “an Open Finance Portal enabling access to unlimited financial services for emerging markets.” We discuss how Web3 and DeFi can bridge the gap to financial services for small businesses in emerging economies, some of the barriers to financial inclusion for the unbanked and financially underserved, why Africa is at the frontier of the Decentralized Finance movement, and much more.
Three Key Takeaways
While the focus in DeFi is often on the 1 billion unbanked people around the world, there is also a need to support those who are financially underserved, including small and medium-sized business in emerging economies who lack access to financial services like credit, hedging opportunities, investment opportunities, etc.
The continent of Africa has the world’s largest population of young, digital-native entrepreneurs, while also facing substantial challenges around financial inclusion. This presents an incredible opportunity for the growth of Web3 technology and DeFi in Africa.
Web3 and DeFi gives the individual opportunities to build new financial tools that simply wasn’t possible before by shifting power from centralized institutions to the community.
Follow Victor and Canza Finance
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Episode Time Stamps
02:55 - What was your “Ah hah” moment that got you excited about cryptocurrency and web3 in the beginning?
06:20- The Canza Finance website has the tagline – “The Future of Web3.0 and African DeFi.” Can you please give listeners a high-level overview of Canza Finance and what you’re hoping to accomplish?
08:45 - On your website, you mention how “Canza” stands for “Change” in the Hausa language, which is spoken by 150M Africans. Why is the word “Change” so important to what you are doing? What are you looking to change?
10:50 - One of the challenges that DeFi ventures face is implementing appropriate on and off ramps, which can be especially difficult in emerging markets. Talk to be about Canza Dapps, and how you’re navigating these challenges?
15:40 - What are some of the biggest barriers faced by those in emerging markets when it comes to accessing traditional financial services?
19:15 - I want to share a quote from the Co-Founder and CTO of Canza Finance, Oyedeji Oluwoye – “We stand at a critical juncture in the journey to democratizing finance, with Nigeria emerging at the vanguard of crypto adoption globally. Against a backdrop of high inflation, financial instability and barriers to access of traditional financial services, sub-Saharan Africa’s underdeveloped financial infrastructure has made the region a perfect vector for decentralized finance…Our vision is to become leaders in decentralized finance and to spearhead this movement to offer financial freedom to millions of individuals.” What makes Africa such an exciting place to launch a DeFi venture?
25:10 - Canza Finance has had great success in achieving support from Venture Capital and establish key partnerships. What advice would you have for new DeFi ventures looking to navigate the complexity of the Web3 funding ecosystem?
30:40 - What does the long term roadmap look like for Canza Finance – where do you see things in 5-10 years?
34:40 - What’s the best way for listeners to learn more about Canza Finance?
35:50 - To wrap things up, if you could name one thing that excites you most about the social impact potential of web3, what would it be and why?
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DISCLAIMER
While we may discuss specific web3 projects or cryptocurrencies on this podcast, please do not take any of this as investment advice, and please make sure to do your own research on potential investment opportunities, or any opportunity. We host a variety of guests on this podcast with the sole purpose of highlighting the social impact use cases of this technology. That being said, Crypto Altruism does not endorse any of these projects, and we recognize that, since this is an emerging sector, some may be operating in regulatory grey areas, and as such, we cannot confirm their legality in the jurisdictions in which they operate, especially as it pertains to decentralized finance protocols. So, before getting involved with any project, it’s important that you do your own research and confirm the legality of the project. More available HERE.
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