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Role of the Capital Market In Developing Nigeria’s Fintech Ecosystem

Fintech	5395 VIEWS
Fintech
5395 VIEWS

Tuesday, January 08, 2019 06.30AM / Bukola Akinyele for Proshare WebTV

Capital Markets worldwide have key roles to play in developing the fintech ecosystem say tech experts and financial analysts.

Valued at approximately $40bn the Global Fintech Industry, is noted to provide great opportunities for driving innovation and technology in the financial services industry.

For a frontier economy like Nigeria, the regulatory environment in the capital market serves as an enabler for the growth of the Fintech Industry.

At the maiden edition of the Africa Fintech Festival held in Lagos at the end of last year, Dr. Afolabi Olowookere Head, Economic Research, at the Nigeria Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), argued that some exchanges are already using blockchain technology.

He cited the fact that AFEX is a commodity exchange that is already investing in blockchain technology and the Central Securities Clearance Systems, CSCS, who are also doing a lot of work in blockchain platforms to improve service delivery.

Dr. Olowookere emphasized the need for collaboration between fintech firms and capital market operators to facilitate an efficient and effective financial system. He believes that fintech companies equally have critical roles to play in enhancing Financial Literacy.

The SEC head of research observed that the Fintech roadmap committee established by the capital market regulator, will encourage fintechs to participate in the capital market by improving the application of technology to financial service delivery.

According to him “Financial inclusion is very important, beyond banking, beyond savings, beyond payments, beyond insurance and pension we need to consider the capital market; we need to pull together”.

Olowookere also stated that SEC was exposing Fintech companies to the enabling laws in the market.

“Another thing we are doing is that we are setting up a Fintech unit in our infrastructure department to see how to engage fintech companies.’’, he notes.

Mr Gbite Oduneye CEO, Eagle Global Markets, on his part said the more people understand financial services and how it benefits their lives, the more people will participate in the market.

Oduneye noted that there has been a lot of interest in mobile payments which is driving financial inclusion in the country.

He said, there were vast opportunities in the capital market and the winner in this sector, would be people that can communicate with the larger retail public.

Speaking further, Gbite noted that, the number of people and clients that are actually operate in the capital market are relatively small.

He said, the SEC has done a lot to assist innovators by creating sandboxes, to create an enabling environment for innovative entrepreneurs.

The EGM CEO emphasized the need for partnership between innovators and existing capital market players, to create products and services to reach out to the general populace and to speak in a language that they understand.