The Chief Operating Officer of Rand Merchant Bank Nigeria (RMB), Funso Odukoya, wants increased awareness and greater partnership among stakeholders, if the nation is to achieve its target of greater financial inclusion in the country ahead of the 2020 target date.
Odukoya spoke during a panel session at the 2018 Annual National Conference of the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN), with the theme: “Banks, Fintechs and Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion Journey,” held in Lagos, recently.
“To achieve financial inclusion, we need to educate everyone. Let’s get the information out there and let’s bring people into the financial system.
“We can achieve this by understanding our culture and by leveraging information to make sure everybody understands what financial inclusion is about,” he said.
Responding to a question on reports that banks do not lend to FinTechs, because of competition, Odukoya said: “Banks carry out due diligence before they lend to any sector. You really must do the due diligence before you can lend to anybody.
“Banking is just (about) understanding the risk,” he noted, stressing that in most countries where Fintechs developed, “you will discover that they are not really dependent on banks’ funding.”
“There are venture capitalists and private equity companies that look into the value the start-up is bringing and they provide funds to those companies.
“So, FinTechs that are struggling for funds, I would say is because they have no value to offer. If a FinTech start-up has value, funding will seek such a firm out.
“We have instances of young start-ups that are flooded with funding because they are bringing value to the table.”
He however expressed the need for collaboration in the relationship between the banks and the FinTechs, rather than a “we against them” thing.
“It has to be all of us working together to achieve the ultimate goal of reaching out to everyone.
“So, the goal is not for fintechs to overtake banks, or banks to overtake fintechs. The goal is to reach out to everyone and make financial services affordable and available to everyone,” he stressed.
Photo Caption: Members of FinTech Nigeria during a recent visit to the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) in Abuja.
