The upsurge in the entry of companies into the FinTech sector poses no threat to the banking sector, Jim Ovia, Chairman of Zenith Bank, a leading Nigerian financial institution says.
Ovia believes that contrary to popular assumptions, FinTech is not a threat to the banking institutions but rather sees, he sees a strategic partnership to better serve the needs of customers.
Financial Technology commonly called FinTech is a new industry that uses technology to offer and enhance services in the financial services industry.
FinTech companies have in recent times competed with traditional financial industry players in the delivery of financial services but the Zenith Bank Chairman says that FinTech will only create more symbiotic relationship between the two industries.
Ovia who fielding questions in an interview with British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) says that FinTech is an opportunity to digitize the Nigeria economy without necessarily needing a banking licence to establish how payment system are done.
Ovia says that with an operational FinTech system in place, there would be more inclusiveness of all and sundry in the economy where transactions and payments will be done efficiently and transparently.
Ovia says that with an operational FinTech system in place, there would be more inclusiveness of all and sundry in the economy where transactions and payments will be done efficiently and transparently.
”Many people think it might be a threat to the banking industry. No. It will only create a symbiotic relationship”, the Zenith Bank Chairman says while expressing the role of FinTech in local banking in Nigeria.
In the face of a myriad of infrastructural hurdles facing the growth of FinTech in the Nigerian context, Ovia singled out broadband provision as the major area yet to be fully explored and developed.
”We have a population of over 180 million and a connected line is above 100 million, what is only not addressed well is the area of broadband, so are many other African countries”, he says.
”Broadband is a recent phenomena that is enabled by cohesion of more bandwidth and the infrastructure you need for that is that the regulator to create and apportion more spectrum”, he adds.
Speaking on some of the lessons learnt in the founding years of Zenith Bank Ovia says that ”at the time we were building the banking industry, the opportunity were different and the experience was also different and I would refer to it as time and chance.
”At our time banking licences were opened up by the government at that time and the privilege that existed then is different from what we have now. And the diversity the environment created for us gave us the opportunity to explore and explode”, he adds.
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