Here is Ugo, your almost average Nigerian in his early thirties with a plan to relocate abroad or “Japa” as we simply know it. Our guy has begun making his plans and taking steps towards that direction but he’s restrained by concerns.
Ugo is a businessman. a typical Igbo man with his startups here in Lagos. Despite his relocation plans, he has no intentions of giving up his business and he also plans to invite foreign investors and expand when he travels.
Well, the good news for Ugo and the likes of him is that the innovation in financial services has evolved in that regard.
Now thanks to technology, almost everybody and anybody with access to technology and the internet can benefit from these innovations and other financial services that have been made available to ease business transactions and I would add, make life easier.
Everything from cross-border payment, diaspora remittances, money transfers, and investments interface have all been made available at the tip of our fingers. And what does that mean for us, it implies that thanks to technological advancement we do not have to wait for weeks or long periods of time to process our cross-border transactions or local remittances.
PSPs, IMTOs, and financial service providers have all taken giant strides in that regard, all these subject to a framework of regulations and guidelines to ensure data privacy.
The advancement of AI allows these financial institutions to process data that would otherwise have been done manually at the same time reducing errors that most likely would have been encountered.
It allows for all these intermediaries and channels to interface and access beneficiaries’ and payer’s data to facilitate transactions providing financial solutions. One thing that is certain is that the realisation of covid-19 which is a phase that we are still in opened the eyes of many in both private and government sectors alike to the current trend in business transactions. This has definitely given an arm-lift to fintech innovations, pushing people to think outside the box if they were to sustain their businesses.
Going by the comment of the Director of the Monetary Policy Department of the CBN, Dr. Hassan Mahmud at a recent stakeholders’ meeting in Enugu;…”From 2014 to 2019 Nigerian Fintech scene raised more than $600 million in funding and their core functions have been to facilitate payments using wallets, processors, merchant service providers for mobile, domestic and cross-border transactions. This is true with fintech giants like Paystack, Flutterwave, Paypal, Kuda, Interswitch, Piggvest, and also those founded by our Nigerian financial institutions alike constantly seeking ways to bridge the gap in payment transactions and businesses solution generally.
We can say that Ugo’s questions as well as the questions of many have already been answered.
The CBN definitely not being left out in an attempt to encourage investment opportunities in the business sector, announced its “naira 4 dollars policy” to encourage diaspora remittances and boost the inflow of foreign currency into Nigeria.
Gone are the days when the distance was a limitation to business growth and advancement. Financial Innovations which are evolving continuously have given room for Nigerians as well as people all over the world to go beyond the status quo of their businesses and do so with ease.
