Data; Data Governance; Data protection; Personal Data; Non-Personal Data; Open Data; Cyber-Security; Development; Africa; Malabo; AfCFTA

Digitalization is quickly emerging as an avenue for future economic development. As a result of this, financial technology companies (FinTechs) have taken to digitalization both to understand their customers and to use data to design more productive and convenient products. Subsequently, they are credited with making financial resources increasingly available and affordable. In Africa, millions of people use a vast array of proliferating mobile platforms as transactional interfaces. Although these innovations have improved the ease of financial transactions, they are not without challenges. Due to the dynamic nature of these processes, ubiquitous challenges affecting collection, processing, quality and security of collected data continually emerge. These challenges create opportunities for financial data governance. In this paper, we explore digitalization and financial governance in Africa. We identify the current state of knowledge and explicate how this understanding has been applied on the continent. Finally, we specify existing knowledge gaps in areas that could form the basis of a future research agenda for practitioners and policy makers.