By Joseph Elvis A. Lamptey,
Recent layoffs across global technology firms have been widely misunderstood.
When companies like Amazon cut headcount, the instinct is to interpret it as a decline; however, this is a strategic compression.
Layers are removed, decision cycles shortened, and capital redeployed toward AI, automation, and core infrastructure.
The people leaving these firms are not excess capacity, but operators, product managers, engineers, risk specialists, and compliance professionals trained to run complex systems
at scale.
The popular response is to encourage entrepreneurship as the default next step, however, that advice is directionally wrong.
Entrepreneurship demands tolerance for uncertainty, early-stage commercial execution, and resilience without institutional support.
Most displaced tech professionals will generate more impact rebuilding or reshaping institutions than launching under-capitalised startups with regulatory exposure and limited distribution.
This institutional rebuilding is already underway in Africa’s fintech ecosystem.
In markets such as Kenya, traditional banks are aggressively recruiting fintech talent.
This is not a retreat from innovation but a rational response to regulatory reality.
Fintechs thrived on speed, product focus, and user experience.
Banks retained licenses, balance sheets, distribution, and regulator trust.
As regulatory scrutiny tightened across payments, lending, and digital wallets, the balance of power shifted decisively toward incumbents that can innovate without fighting for operational approval. Kenya offers a
clear case study.
Efforts to modernise the National Payment Systems Act have stalled for an extended period, leaving many fintechs operating in regulatory limbo.
Without clear licensing pathways, startups have been forced into dependency on bank partnerships for core operations.
This has constrained independent scaling, slowed product expansion, and increased operational risk. Talent always responds quickly to uncertainty.
As regulatory delays persisted, banks moved decisively. Large lenders strengthened internal digital teams, expanded compliance and risk functions, and increased compensation for technology and payments roles.
In several cases, banks now offer higher salaries, clearer career progression, and greater job security than venture-backed fintechs navigating licensing risk and funding volatility. This is not hypothetical.
Several high-profile fintechs have retrenched staff or scaled down local operations as regulatory and funding pressures mounted.
At the same time, many professionals who left banks during the early fintech boom are now returning to incumbents, prioritising stability, predictability, and institutional legitimacy.
This does not signal the collapse of fintech but rather signals the end of regulatory-naive fintech.
The next phase of the industry will be defined less by growth velocity and more by regulatory fluency, infrastructure depth, and sustainable economics.
Many fintech capabilities are being internalised by banks and others will survive as infrastructure providers rather than consumer brands.
The broader lesson is uncomfortable but very clear that talent flows toward power. Power follows regulation, and regulation ultimately determines who gets to scale.
The future of fintech will not be led by those who move fastest, but by those who understand how to build durable systems inside regulated environments while shaping what comes next.
