Ovia: Fintechs Can’t Take Over Banking Services
Obinna Chima
The founder of Zenith Bank Plc, Mr. Jim Ovia has stressed the need for banks and financial technology (fintech) companies to continue to collaborate and cooperate to deliver superior products and services to customers.
Ovia, who said this in a presentation titled: “The Future of Financial Services in Nigeria,” he delivered at the 2018 Deloitte Alumni Event in Lagos, said the argument that fintechs would be so disruptive to take away services of the banks is not true
“What they need is to cooperate and collaborate, that I called ‘co-competition.’ That is what we are going to see between now and the next five years. But beyond that, 2024 and 2030, there is going to be massive disruption and more things are going to happen,” he said.
The Zenith Bank chairman pointed out that with improvement in technology, the demand for cash has reduced significantly.
“Nobody takes cash home anymore. Then arm robbers realised that there is no cash to steal, so they have stopped robbing people at home.
“We are beginning to experience a revolution in the financial services industry. Today, fintech companies offer bespoke financial services to deliver products and services the way you want it. “Fintech companies have been designed to do lending, payments, disbursements, advertising services, investments, wealth management, etc. The only thing is that they don’t keep cash,” he said.
He noted that with the revolution of modern banking, mobile banking and fintech services, “you don’t need bank branches.”
“In Lagos, the number of bank branches is much higher than anywhere else in the country. In the future this might not be necessary, because we are now in a stage of financial revolution and financial inclu- sion, where everybody can access to financial services through mobile banking.
“The regulators in Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria, National Insurance Commission and the Nigerian Communications Commission – are working together to give approval for mobile insurance.
“That is a financial product. In the next 20 years, would jobs be lost? Not necessarily. Jobs would be re-invented. You are not going to lose jobs, but people are going to be re-trained.
“We have our youths who are now being trained to write apps, algorithms and different kind of applications, that they couldn’t do three years ago.
“So, more of them are being employed to do that. So, they are not losing jobs, but even creating more jobs with technology.
“The adoption of this technology will drive a new way of doing things, leading to the creation of new products and services,” Ovia explained.