Experts to assess, review how banks will relate with FinTech groups for growth
Come early next month in Lagos, leading banking stakeholders will meet with experts in Financial services Technology (FinTech) to look at how both sub sectors have been relating and how best they can partner for the growth of the nation’s financial services sector.
In a chat with the managing director of eMaginations Group, Mr. Sola Fanawopo, the organizers of Ennovators Breakfast Series (EBS), he said “The basis for this concern is stemmed from the global best practices where Fintech, the term coined for financial services technology, has become an extremely fast-growing industry worldwide. Its growth has enabled banks in Europe and the US to innovate and develop products to suit customers’ lifestyles”.
According to him, bank chiefs and FinTech founders such as Muhammad Jibrin, MD/CEO, of SunTrust Bank, Yele Okeremi, MD/CEO of Precise Financial Systems, John Obaro, MD/CEO of Systemspecs and Uzoma Dozie, Group MD/CEO, Diamond Bank, would join other speakers at the Oriental Hotel, venue of EBS in March to examine how banks and FinTech should relate.
While stressing that Nigeria is not an exception in the FinTech upsurge and disruptive tendencies, Fanawopo said the global investment in FinTech is reported to have reached as high as $80 billion between 2010 and 2016.
He said “For some time after the global and local financial crisis, traditional banks have laid emphasis on regaining customers’ trust. I am happy that banks have realised the potential of FinTech and are now slowly joining the startups in the race. That is why it is heartening to know that a Nigerian call itself FinTech bank”.
He explained that in large part, FinTech firms are becoming “disruptors” for good, and that the secret to maintaining the banking industry is to nurture the startups through which new technology is birthed. To grow the banking industry, he asked, “Should banks engage FinTechs for competitive advantage, should banks build, partners or acquire FinTechs?”
