There is a shiny version of fintech success that often dominates the headlines—surging transaction volumes, aggressive market expansions, and constant funding rounds. However, beneath this polished exterior, many businesses are struggling with a different reality: high activity levels that mask thin profit margins and a vague path to actual sustainability.
For Ayodeji Osisami, the Chief Financial Officer at Kora, this is where the industry conversation usually misses the mark. Osisami believes that growth itself isn’t the hurdle. The real challenge lies in building a business that can thrive on its own merits without needing constant capital injections to stay afloat.
Osisami’s journey into the heart of finance began with a background in computer engineering at Covenant University. While he spent his early years fascinated by how systems worked, he eventually realized his true interest lay in the mechanics of business—how they grow, how they generate cash, and how they survive in the long run. This shift led him through a rigorous parallel education, analyzing global markets via Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, eventually earning an MBA from Lagos Business School along with prestigious CFA and CIMA certifications.
This blend of engineering logic and financial discipline has become his secret weapon at Kora. It allows him to look past growth metrics and see the infrastructure costs that often eat a company from the inside out. He argues that many fintechs mistakenly believe they can ignore the basic laws of business. For Osisami, profitability must be an early priority rather than a distant goal. He advocates for mastering a specific niche before trying to conquer every market, ensuring that the company has a “cash cow” to fund its future ambitions.
One of the biggest traps in the payments space is the hidden cost of partnerships and infrastructure. Osisami explains that while money might be moving through a system in large quantities, the cuts taken by banks and technical partners can easily exceed the revenue earned per transaction. When you add high talent costs—which can account for up to 70% of operating expenses—and the weight of regulatory compliance, the margin for error becomes incredibly small.
At Kora, the strategy is grounded in what Osisami calls “bottom-line discipline.” Every decision, from hiring new staff to entering a new country, is built backward from sustainable revenue projections. Expansion isn’t just about ambition; it’s a calculated financial move. Sometimes, entering a new market is less about immediate profit and more about providing cross-border value to existing merchants.
Looking at the broader African landscape, Osisami points out that fragmented regulation is a major barrier. He envisions a future where the continent adopts a system similar to Europe’s “passporting,” where a single license could be recognized across multiple borders, drastically reducing the cost of innovation.
Ultimately, his philosophy is simple: a successful fintech must be profitable, valuable, and trusted. Scale is a powerful tool, but as he told Zoyols News, processing billions of dollars doesn’t matter if the business isn’t efficient enough to keep some of it. If he wasn’t navigating the financial future of Kora, he admits he’d likely be running an investment house—a role that perfectly matches his lifelong drive to understand where value is truly created.
