The event served as a demonstration of the leading payments technology company’s ongoing commitment to the growth and development of the fintech landscape.

Fast becoming one of the industry’s most anticipated tech gatherings, the forum brought together key representatives from the fintech community, commercial banks, microfinance banks, processors, investors, regulators, and the government, to discuss critical developments and trends in the Nigerian fintech landscape, delve into Mastercard’s strides in facilitating the ecosystem’s growth, and identify potential opportunities within the industry.

Fintech companies have been at the forefront of revolutionizing various industries, serving as powerful vehicles for locally relevant solutions, financial inclusion, and innovative partnerships between financial institutions, governments, merchants, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), both globally and locally.

This transformative role is underscored by the sustained investment in the industry, with the Nigerian fintech sector witnessing a remarkable surge, receiving over $1 billion in the last two years alone – more than triple the industry’s total figure and accounting for more than one-third of the $2.7 billion invested in African fintech since July 2021.

“Mastercard’s Fintech Forum has become an avenue to advance discussions on the development of the industry in Nigeria, and we are proud to be the vehicles of this change. The discussions this year underscored the pivotal role of collaboration and innovation in shaping the future of Nigeria’s fintech landscape. Mastercard remains unwavering in our commitment to power this positive change, offer support, and lead the evolution of the industry,” said Folasade Femi-Lawal, the country manager and area business head for West Africa at Mastercard.

The event also featured a fireside chat titled “Mastercard’s Role in Fintech Ecosystem Collaboration”. During this discussion, Dimitrios Dosis, President of Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EEMEA) at Mastercard, said: “Fintechs continue to stand as the trailblazers, pushing boundaries and reshaping industries. Their penchant for innovation is not just transformative, it is integral to the very fabric of our industry and the broader economy. Mastercard, as a driving force, is proud to champion the pivotal role of fintechs, recognizing their significance in fostering economic progress. As a leading technology provider, we will continue to innovate, and support and collaborate with them to drive locally relevant solutions and initiatives for maximized impact. We’re committed to being the catalyst that propels the ecosystem forward, facilitating a future where technology empowers individuals, businesses, and economies to participate in the global economy.”

The fireside chat was followed by a panel session titled “Digitization and Its Role in Nigeria’s Economic Development”, during which speakers delved into digitization, its role in enhancing efficiency across all sectors, opportunities, and the importance of balancing innovation and inclusivity to maximize its impact on Nigeria’s economic development.

During the session, Nasir Yammama, senior special assistant to the President, Innovation, said:

“Nigeria’s digital transformation and ever-evolving fintech and banking landscape presents exciting possibilities. The ongoing innovation boom acts as the cornerstone for advancing digital public infrastructure, fostering financial inclusion, and propelling economic growth. As always, the government remains committed to creating an enabling environment and collaborating with key industry players to drive more impactful innovations and pave the way for a future where every individual and business can thrive in a digital-first global environment through well-informed, inclusive policies and initiatives.”

Mark Elliott, division president, Mastercard Sub-Saharan Africa, closed the event and offered insights into the fintech landscape.

He emphasised the importance of the fintech industry and highlighted the significance of inclusive innovation and collaboration in driving sustained economic development.

“Mastercard is providing fintechs with the tools, resources, and support they need to thrive in the ever-evolving digital economy. Whether it’s through innovative solutions or strategic partnerships with key players in the industry, Mastercard has demonstrated its commitment to shaping the future of fintech and contributing to the growth and success of the broader ecosystem,” said Mark Elliott, Division President, Mastercard Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Mastercard Fintech Forum not only celebrated the achievements and advancements in Nigeria’s fintech sector, but also revealed a shared vision among industry leaders, which encompassed a future where strategic collaboration continues to be a driving force for positive change, innovation, and widespread financial inclusion, not only in Nigeria but on a global scale.

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Shehu Usman, Coordinator, NDIC Kano zonal office, at a lecture organised by the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) said that the corporation has planned to completely liquidate the 179 microfinance banks whose licences were recently revoked by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Usman said this while commemorating the 2023 Financial Literacy Day held at Rumfa College in Kano on thursday.

According to him, the apex bank had since forwarded the list of the affected Microfinance banks and those of the four primary mortgage banks and three finance companies to the corporation for final liquidation.

Usman said the corporation is working with the CBN to achieve the liquidation mission because it has the responsibility to ensure the protection and guarantee of the financial disposition of Nigerians.

The NDIC Zonal boss hereby used the occasion to warn bank customers against depositing or lodging their money in any bank that does not have the sticker of the corporation.

Speaking on Financial Literacy Day for the students, he said it has become an urgent need for students to be aware of financial transactions and how to go about them.

The event, he said, will facilitate students’ enligthenment on how to operate accounts, including business transaction accounts, so they know how to invest their money or save it.

Khadija Masanawa, an official in the NDIC Kano zonal office, explained that the corporation had provided deposit guarantees to a total of 984 CBN-licensed banks across the country.

Safiyanu Na’abba, the Principal of the College, in his remarks commended the corporation for organising the programme, which he said had enlightened both staff and students of the school on the operations of the corporation.

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The fully licensed and technology-driven finance institution that offers financial solutions to businesses and individuals intends to as well as empower entrepreneurs to launch new businesses to compete in the marketplace.

The Chief Executive Officer of Primera Microfinance Bank, Unwana Efiong Esang, said, “At Primera MFBank, we are solidly committed to building the capacity of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in this economy to ensure they thrive, create wealth for our people and add value to society.”

The Bank achieved this admirable feat by strategically focusing on key growth industries within the SME space to promote their commercial and economic growth, and by further committing to maintaining robust financing lines for entrepreneurs in the economy, enabling them to weather economic headwinds and overcome crucial financial challenges.

In recognizing the key role that gender diversity and financial inclusion for women play in driving sustainable economic growth, approximately 26% of these financing lines were made out to female entrepreneurs in the current financial year, double the 13% share recorded in 2021.

This is critical because, according to available data, over 99% of registered businesses in Nigeria are MSMEs and they contribute 46% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is in addition to providing over 87% of employment in our economy.

So, we are very deliberate in our focus to grow this very important dimension of our economy by leveraging one of our must-win objectives of significantly improving customer and stakeholder satisfaction.”

“Our bank, through our Primera Business proposition, is proud to be championing the cause of SMEs in our economy.

And in recognition of the fact that access to finance is a major challenge to SMEs, we have optimized our lending processes to make our financing lines more accessible and available in a time and cost-efficient manner to our highly valued SME clientele.

In addition to these, we have established partnerships that have significantly improved on credit application support, as well as the knowledge, expertise, and enabling infrastructure around SMEs through our periodically held and very well-attended Primera SME Clinics,” Esang further stated.

In addition, he said, “These clinics are focused on empowering SMEs and entrepreneurs with company incorporation support, financial and economic literacy, sales and marketing support, book-keeping knowledge, branding support, and legal advisory for their businesses.

“We have developed a very robust and all-encompassing ecosystem to incubate SMEs to achieve market and economic success.”

The post Primera MFBank Eyes Economic Growth, Provides over N5b Financing to SMEs appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Unfortunately, this impression is very far from reality.

Filtering through the World Bank’s 2021 report on Financial Inclusion, Digital Payments, and Resilience in the Age of COVID-19, one would find that over 65% of the region still has limited access to deposit and credit facilities provided by financial institutions.

Not only are these financial services essential to the growth of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs), they are integral to improving the money markets and fostering social development amongst individuals.

Fintechs, MFIs and MFBs require more technologically-driven solutions, proper bookkeeping and reporting mechanisms, clear credit policies and better internal controls to provide these life-altering services. Fortunately, Errandpay’s robust agency banking and mobile money models promise to enhance such solutions.

Errandpay is a fintech company operating across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, providing financial services providers with agency banking applications and affordable point of sales (PoS) terminals, amongst other innovative products for processing real-time transactions.

The company’s agency banking solution is entirely white label and reduces major obstacles in go-to-market strategies banks experience.

Banking stressors like recruiting and managing developers, setting and meeting timelines, projecting, collecting and aggregating vendors, negotiating with other banks, customer onboarding and documentation are eliminated. Time spent on these stressors is reduced from years, sometimes months, to days.

Agency banking, also known as branchless banking, usually allows banks to expand their branches, reach and customers by using authorised agents who can offer banking services like deposit and credit facilities using authorised PoS machines.

A more detailed description; Aliyu, an Hausa retailer in the North Eastern part of Nigeria, has been authorised to operate a PoS machine by a bank. Aliyu helps his family, neighbours, and friends send, receive and withdraw money using his PoS machine. Through Aliyu, the bank can reach more customers in indigenous areas. Aliyu can earn additional income from commissions from each transaction he processes on his PoS device.

As an agent, Aliyu is in the best position to help his bank make lending decisions because he is more familiar with his customers. He knows their repayment capacity, financial stability, credit ratings, etc. These insights can help his bank maintain its asset quality.

Errandpay is passionate about driving financial inclusion by ensuring its API can easily be integrated by any financial institution planning to leverage the platform to expedite its expansion plans across the continent.

In a recent chat with Paul Dureke, the Errandpay’s Chief Technology Officer explained that the platform helps facilitate the operations of other financial institutions:

“Building technology is difficult and time-consuming, so we have made developer-friendly and easy-to-integrate APIs readily available for all our partners. From white labelled services to aggregation of major services and an ability to integrate seamlessly to any core banking platform in Africa, Errandpay’s features are fully customisable to the needs of any potential partner. Fintechs, MFBs and MFIs can worry less about building technologies and focus more on strengthening their structures through the platform”.

Errandpay’s vision is to transform authorised agents into human MFBs. However, this dream can only be actualised through more partnerships.

“As we have rightly seen in the past 10 years across the Sub Saharan Africa region, the fintech revolution has been chiefly driven by collaboration. One of ErrandPay’s core strategies is collaborations with Microfinance banks, financial institutions, Aggregators, agents, fintech companies and lots more. We have built our technology for ambitious banks, organisations, Founders and CEOs looking to scale super-fast,” stated Paul Dureke.

Since March 2022, Errandpay’s products have significantly improved many people’s financial lives through its 15 special fintech partners across Africa.

The platform can facilitate lending, insurance and investment products, credit card payments, registration for different services and so on, while its partners avoid additional charges for using the platform. 

Onboarding on Errandpay is free

The platform is accessible on errandpay.com and/or its app on iOS and Android devices, while its supportive technical team can be reached at hello@errandpay.com. 

The post How Errandpay is Driving Financial Inclusion across Sub-Saharan Africa by Powering Fintechs, MFBs and MFIs appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.