The next fintech frontier: finance for global citizens

More than 300 million people now live outside their country of birth, and for many of them a credit history does not survive the move. The founder of one cross-border finance platform argues that this is the gap fintech has so far left open.

Ridwan Olalere is co-founder and CEO of LemFi, a financial platform serving more than two million people who live and work across borders. He previously held leadership roles at Uber, OPay and Flutterwave. In this contributed piece he sets out his own view of why financial inclusion has to follow people across borders.

Global migration is accelerating. Today, more than 300 million people live outside their country of birth, yet the financial system still treats them as temporary participants rather than long-term economic contributors.

When people move countries, their financial lives are often reset to zero. Credit histories disappear, making it harder to open a bank account, rent a home or access basic services. Rebuilding trust can take years in systems that don’t recognise international histories. This goes beyond inconvenience: without access to credit or a financial track record, people can’t manage cash flow effectively, and may be locked out of opportunities like starting a business or even securing a job.

At the same time, these globally mobile communities are becoming one of the most powerful economic forces in the world. In 2024 alone, over $900 billion was sent in remittances globally, supporting families, funding education and driving economic growth across emerging markets. In some countries, including Tajikistan, Tonga and Lebanon, remittances account for a significant share of GDP, often exceeding foreign direct investment and development aid, underscoring that this is more than just marginal economic activity.

This presents a paradox: migrants are central to global economic flows, yet have been left behind by fintech and remain structurally underserved by the financial systems they rely on most.

Fintech promised inclusion, but built elsewhere

Over the past decade, fintech has made remarkable progress. We have seen the rise of neobanks, trading platforms and crypto ecosystems that have expanded access in some areas and improved user experience dramatically. But much of this innovation has been built around already-served customers.

Despite the common narrative around financial inclusion, many crypto platforms and trading apps are designed for users who are already inside the financial system, not those locked out of it. For all the talk of inclusion, the industry has largely focused on optimising convenience, speed and cost within existing financial frameworks, rather than redesigning those frameworks for people whose lives span borders. They don’t solve for credit invisibility, fragmented financial identities or cross-border lives. For millions of underserved people, the key problem is access to basic, trusted financial infrastructure.

This is also why the next chapter of financial innovation is likely to look very different from the last. Financial innovation is increasingly focused on the infrastructure that sits beneath products and services. Technologies such as stablecoins have the potential to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper and more reliable. For globally mobile communities, they can help create financial systems that work more effectively across borders.

We have built faster interfaces, better user experiences and more efficient rails, but we have not fundamentally addressed who the system excludes. The result is that millions of people remain ‘credit invisible’ when they move countries, because their financial histories cannot travel with them. Their reliability is not recognised and their access to financial tools is limited precisely when they need them most.

Remittance is only the first step

Financial inclusion also goes beyond remittance. For decades, remittance has been treated as a single-purpose transaction: send money home, complete the task. But this view underestimates both the needs and the potential of globally mobile people.

The financial lives of immigrants do not begin and end with sending money. They need a full stack of services, from access to credit to manage cash flow to savings tools to build stability in new markets, with financial systems that recognise their behaviour across borders. They also need products that reflect the reality of how money moves in their lives: across currencies, across time zones and often under conditions of urgency.

At LemFi, this insight has shaped our approach. We started with remittance, but quickly recognised that transaction data can be used to build financial identity and unlock access to services like credit and savings.

This shift is happening more broadly across fintech. Companies like Marshmallow, which provides car insurance tailored to immigrants and UK newcomers, and Rewire, which builds financial services specifically for migrant workers, reflect a growing recognition that traditional systems, and much of fintech, have failed to serve globally mobile populations adequately.

The opportunity now is not just to build more products, but to create continuity and systems that allow people to carry their financial lives with them across borders.

Building financial systems that move with people

The next phase of fintech will be defined by whether we can build systems that reflect how people actually live today: across borders, across identities and across markets. This is where technology, particularly AI and alternative data, becomes critical.

By combining inputs from open banking, transaction histories, international credit footprints and behavioural data, we can form a far more complete picture of financial reliability.

The same principle applies to payment infrastructure. Cross-border money movement still relies heavily on systems designed decades ago, often involving multiple intermediaries, delays and unnecessary costs. New settlement technologies, including stablecoins, have the potential to make moving value across borders faster and more efficient, helping build more accessible financial services for globally mobile communities.

Instead of relying on static, localised credit scores, we can build systems that recognise real-world behaviour and extend access accordingly. When done responsibly, this allows financial services to include people who have historically been excluded, not because of risk, but because of missing data.

This shift is both an inclusion imperative and one of the largest opportunities in fintech today.

Global remittance flows are projected to exceed $1 trillion within the next decade. Layer in credit, savings, payments and broader financial services for globally mobile populations, and the opportunity expands into a multi-trillion-dollar global migration economy. As labour markets become more interconnected, migration will increasingly become a primary driver of population growth in high-income countries, accelerating demand for financial services that work across borders.

Companies that understand this will be building the financial infrastructure for a global generation: combining trusted products, alternative data, modern settlement technology and cross-border financial continuity into systems designed for how people actually live.

From access to continuity

Financial inclusion cannot stop at access if that access disappears when people move.

The real opportunity is financial continuity: building systems that allow people to carry their financial identity, trust and opportunity with them wherever they go. Fintech has already shown it can improve existing systems. The next step is to redesign them for a world where mobility is the norm.

That is where the future of fintech will be built.