Reform or die Nigerian banks told
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday, advised Nigeria’s financial services institutions to urgently embrace operational reforms to meet with the inevitability of the Fintech revolution or risk being left behind by competition.
Osinbajo who gave the advice at the ongoing first ever Africa Investment Forum in Johannesburg, according to The Sun, said there are no plans to take the banks’ lunch, but the banks have to reform to survive.
He said the “Fintech companies, as you know, are challenging some of the old laws on banking and all of that.
“The major issue is that technology is clearly going to disrupt the financial space, and is doing so already, so banks have to reform,” Osinbajo said.
“They have to invest in some of the Fintech companies themselves, and they have to see this revolution as inevitable.
“I think that what we are seeing today is the reform around that space, and many of the banks are looking up and understanding that this is going to happen, and it’s already happening.”
He, however, allayed the fears of the banks by saying the government is, and will, work with them, along with the regulators, and the Fintech companies to ensure stronger development in the sector.
“I think the first thing is to allay the fears of the bank that lunch isn’t being taken away. Banks, of course, are jittery about some of what is happening in the Fintech space,” Osinbajo added.
