FintechNGR (Fintech Association of Nigeria) held its Fintech Outlook 2022 on Thursday, February 10, 2022, an annual event held at the beginning of every year to prepare and educate the ecosystem, unearth and discuss trends, forecasts major drivers, key technology and growth indices that can spur industry players to leapfrog and maximize impact in the year.

Citing the whooping $4.65bn in disclosed funding received by African startups, as shown from available statistics, with over 1.37bn of that amount coming to Nigeria and fintechs in the country taking up a huge 73%, Ade Bajomo, FintechNGR's President, opined that there are indeed "many opportunities to leverage to achieve unparalleled transformation in the fintech landscape". A major reason Bajomo highlighted for the spate of funding African fintechs received in the past year, as well as the astronomic growth rate of payments was the increasingly mobile and tech-savvy youth population.

The speakers present at the event were- Mitchell Elegbe, Founder/GMD, Interswitch, Olufemi Sojinrin, CIO, NIBSS, Odunayo Eweniyi, CEO, Piggyvest, Tosin Eniolorunda, CEO, TeamApt, Nkebet Mesele, Senior Director, Sub-Saharan Africa, VISA, Dr David Isiavwe, President ISSAN & GM, Ecobank, Laurin Hainy, CEO, Fairmoney, Daniel Awe, Head Africa Fintech Foundry, Yinka Edu, Partner, UUBO and the moderator, Adeyinka Adeyemi, CEO, Intermarc Consulting.

Here are some insights shared across different fintech verticals;

• Savings and Investments as we have always known will not be staying the same for much longer. There is a growing share of millennials who do not seem interested in maintaining the status quo of traditional investment methods like pensions and static interest rates
• Users are demanding out of the box innovation and a 360 degrees financial sector that takes into account varying needs, differing lifestyles, on-demand flexibility, personalized services, individual preferences that they can plug into in real-time.
• The future of money is largely digital, from embedded finance to contactless payments, open banking and others, and there is a need to actively start thinking about that future and equipping the ecosystem to deliver requisite values.
• Cybersecurity issues keep going on an alarming high as well as its attendant costs and organisations need to move from just defence readiness to agile resilience in light of the speed of transformation the fintech landscape and technology are seeing globally.

Culled from: Proshare