Microsoft and Pricewaterhouse Coopers, PwC have charged the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN) and other regulators to develop policies and regulations in the digital space that will help achieve growth and development in financial institutions and the economy in general.
Mayowa Agboade, the Director of Industry Solution and Financial Services, Microsoft Transformation at Microsoft, while speaking at the Microsoft CFOs Roundtable partnership with Harvard Business Review, in Lagos, reiterated the commitment of Microsoft in terms of enabling digital transformation in the financial services industry.
Agboade also called on the Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) of companies and advised that they make use of digital technology in their businesses in order to reduce cost and enhance revenue for their companies.
“Nigerians need to imbibe digital technology as a culture as this is the future for transforming business and the economy.
“The role of today’s CFOs and finance executives needs to be broader and requires an increased appreciation of technology. The emergence of the digital age is fundamentally changing the priorities and roles of today’s finance executives with security at its core,” he said.
Why this matters: The Microsoft director stated that the CBN needs to be involved in artificial intelligence, mixed reality and blockchain technology in order to be able to draft a policy framework that will help digital technology in businesses thrive.
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Mr. Femi Osinubi, Partner and Leader at PwC also had a word or two to say during the Roundtable event. He made it known that the future of finance lies in technology and it is essential in increasing productivity, profit and reducing cost.
He stated that digital finance strategies are needed to transform the sector while making mention of technologies like mobile computing, Robotic process automation, blockchain, real time/self–service computing, analytics and visualisation, machine learning and Artificial Intelligent, AI Chatbots and Speech recognition.
“Technology is changing our industry and business all over the world. To this development, the CBN and other regulators in financial sectors need to come together and initiate policy framework and regulations on digital application and implementation that would help the economy grow speedily.
“There is a need for the public sector to begin to adopt digital technology in governance but they must understand the processes before they can initiate a policy that would eventually go through the law making process,” said Osinubi.
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