Fintechs urged to innovate into other financial services aside payment delivery

FEMI AWOY EMI, THE FOUNDER and CEO of Proshare Nigeria Limited has called on financial technology companies to innovate more into other areas of financial services different from payment delivery that are also in need of development.

He identified these other areas of financial services as affordable credit, peer-to-peer lending and deposit mobilization.

Awoyemi who spoke on the challenges fintechs face in financial service delivery said the only thing that has evolved from the fintech space in Nigeria is from one side, which is the payment side.

He said there are so many other aspects in which fintechs can play, including affordable credit and peer-topeer lending just as he noted that there is nothing coming up on the deposit mobilisation side.

He equally dispelled the notion that fintechs are a threat to banks, saying “the banks see the situation of things right now more as a partnership rather than a threat and the truth of the matter is that the only reason why the fintechs are doing anything positive right now is basically because of the cooperation of the banks.

“The full concept for fintechs is not to get people to be banked, but to provide services for the unbanked.”

Stressing other areas fintechs can investigate and leverage, the Proshare boss urged solution providers to take a look at the latest financial inclusion statistics from Efina, which studied Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana.

“You will find out that since 2014 when we had our economic recession, financial inclusion in Nigeria has been on a decline.

Second thing you find is that the gender gap on financial inclusion is actually wider by about 20 percent. This means that whatever gains we had up till 2014, we’ve lost.”

He stated that, what has aided the financial inclusion growth in Kenya is the existence of an ecosystem in their retail market around which adoption of financial technology are easier because it facilitates trade e.g. the purchase of fresh fruits, dairy products etc.

“But we don’t have a retail culture in Nigeria that is suitable for a rapid expansion in terms of using financial technology.

We however have one thing that works well for us in Nigeria, which is the adoption rate, and is about the highest at 93 percent.

This means there is a huge opportunity for fintechs.”

Adding that in terms of the fintechs eco-space, data availability has made it a huge and a growing space.

“Fintech in Nigeria is functioning not because of the issues around broadband that are being resolved but because of a huge opportunity which the banks have created for us to take care of the transaction side of things,” Awoyemi said.