Stakeholders Harp on Regulatory Stability, Clarity for Fintech Sector 

To create harmonious relationships in the financial technology space, there is a need for clarity of regulations from the regulators to the players in the fintech sector.

Clarity of regulations, according to experts in the space, would not only ensure stability, bridge knowledge gaps, but also help avoid unnecessary frictions among stakeholders.

These were the views of experts, who spoke to journalists in Lagos, ahead of their planned efforts to bring financial regulators closer to operators in the fintech sector in Nigeria.

Besides, these experts also highlighted the importance of financial and regulatory stability, among financial regulators, Fintech developers and grassroots beneficiaries to achieve seamless operations that would further deepen inclusion in the country.

According to representatives of United State of America-based EMTECH, which is partnering with Global InfoSwift Consulting (GIC) to bring financial regulators closer to operators in the fintech ecosystem of Nigeria, more collaboration is needed.

The Founder and CEO, EMTECH, Carmelle Cadet, admitted that each space has its own specific challenges, but stressed that education and capacity building to a greater extent, would help avoid unnecessary frictions.

As such, Cadet said the partnership between EMTECH and GIC would be strategic in helping the sector create a seamless understanding.

She said the partnership is a capacity-building programme focused on three core and interrelated areas; Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), Regulatory Sandbox Framework, and API and Open Banking. The capacity building programme is scheduled to last for the next 90 days.

Cadet said this programme will enable regulators, banks and fintechs to accelerate the transformative changes seen in the evolving financial services regulatory environment.

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According to her, African central banks are moving forward with their innovation and digitisation efforts, and with change, there is a need for collaboration and regulatory frameworks to enable successful outcomes that will impact over a billion people across the continent.

“That has always been our mission and we are doing so with our Modern Central Bank Sandbox Platform and a Modern CBDC Platform built with Open Banking architecture. With that, we recognise the need to complement this by providing enhanced education and understanding of the impact of technological innovation on regulatory and policy approaches to the ecosystem players,” she stated.

She explained that the capacity building programme will facilitate the convergence of knowledge on innovative solutions – enabling supervisory agencies’ regulatory frameworks to foster innovation, financial inclusion, financial system resilience as well as compliance of financial service providers’ (FSPs) emerging product and business models with relevant regulatory and consumer protection requirements.

Elaborating more, Executive Director, Africa, EMTECH, Tunji Odumuboni, said that the areas to be focused on were selected as they represent the core pillars enabling regulators and innovative financial services providers with the tools to enhance financial inclusion while fostering resilience of the entire financial market infrastructure.

Odumuboni said the programme will offer global perspectives tailored for the nuance of the Nigerian financial ecosystem as a whole and individual players on the selected knowledge domains.

Founder and CEO, Global InfoSwift Consulting Ltd, Afolabi Oke, added: “Our objective is to provide this ‘Capacity Building Program’ to the entire financial services ecosystem in Nigeria. This means attracting all financial services regulatory agencies and all financial services providers, from commercial banks to FinTechs.

“We are excited to team up with EMTECH, who have hands-on experience with their API-led Modern Regulatory Sandbox Platform, in enabling Central Banks and other financial services regulators in getting actionable regulatory insights into the broad ecosystem of private-sector innovators while accelerating the readiness of Fintech sector for regulatory reviews and go-to-market approvals.”

Independent Non-Executive Director, Global Infoswift, Mrs. Adeola Azeez, added that new technologies help to level up our lives. She added that rapid advances in financial innovations (FinTech) provide new opportunities for financial services and allow new products, services and players to enter markets.