The Chief Executive Officer of the fintech company CashBox, Mr. Sydney Aigbogun, has stated that collaborations between banks and fintechs in Nigeria would accelerate the achievement of the country’s 95% financial inclusion target.
Aigbogun, who made this statement in an interview with Nairametrics, mentioned that collaboration between fintech startups and traditional financial institutions offers opportunities to leverage their complementary strengths and expand efforts towards financial inclusion.
- “By partnering with banks, we can tap into their infrastructure, regulatory expertise, and customer base to reach more users and expand the market reach for both parties,” he elaborated.
Fintech trends in Nigeria
Aigbogun highlighted the rise in the number of digital lending platforms in Nigeria, leading to an increase in the adoption of mobile banking as one of the leading trends in the space.
He said the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to personalize savings recommendations, automate financial planning, and optimize user engagement is also gaining momentum in the market.
He believes that these trends will continue to drive greater financial inclusion, convenience, and ease for both consumers and businesses in Nigeria.
- “However, despite the progress made over the years, challenges to financial inclusion persist, including low levels of financial literacy and regulatory barriers,” he observed.
- “Fintech companies can tackle these challenges by providing financial education programs and collaborating with regulators to create an enabling environment for innovation,” he added.
While noting that the current regulatory environment for fintech in Nigeria is relatively supportive, Aigbogun expressed that the fintech industry could benefit from clearer guidelines and streamlined processes to foster innovation while ensuring customer protection.
Forex problem and fintechs
Speaking about the operations of CashBox, which recently celebrated its 5th anniversary, Aigbogun mentioned that a weak naira leads to increased costs for the company, as most of its expenses are in US dollars.
However, this has also prompted the fintech to become more ingenious in finding ways to keep its costs low.
- “At CashBox, we strive to keep our costs and expenses to the barest minimum. What other companies would spend millions of naira to achieve, we ensure we spend less than N500,000 to accomplish the same result. We keep reminding ourselves that we haven’t raised any funds from investors, so we do not have room for trial and error.
- “Any mistake we make leads to financial loss, which we aim to avoid. Thus, our marketing strategy has been a lot of online advertisements and smart offline adverts that reach a lot of customers. These smart advertising strategies have saved us a lot of money while still achieving the goals that other companies would spend much more money on,” he explained.
Aigbogun disclosed that CashBox, through its app, had helped over 500,000 users save over N50 billion over the last five years. While the majority of its customers are based in Lagos, the CashBox CEO said the company plans to expand its services to other states of the country this year to further broaden financial inclusion.