In this wide-ranging keynote at the First Bank Nigeria’s Fintech 6.0, I outlined how DeFi is setting new standards of engagement and operations that the traditional banking system will have no choice but to meet.
Also, many bankers are not aware that increasingly more direct-to-consumers trade is being caried out on social media platforms and being settled on stablecoins. Village farmers and craftspeople in the remotest parts of the world can now sell their goods and reach customers worldwide. The volumes may appear small relative to traditional trade flows, but they are rising fast to become mainstream eventually.
I also focused on the impending tokenisation of bank deposits, driven by initiatives from the Bank for International Settlements. While digitisation has introduced risks such as the ones where we saw the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, tokenisation will only be amplifying these challenges. Also, it offers end-users the chance to wield greater control over their payments through application programming interfaces (APIs).
Finally, I feel strongly about regulators not imposing so many rules that prohibits the next generation from accessing new asset classes and sources of wealth by over-regulating new technologies. I shared the story of MetaKovan, a young Indian who rose from poverty to become a billionaire through early investments in Bitcoin. His $69 million purchase of non-fungible token (NFT) by digital artist Beeple shows how younger generations perceive and engage with value creation in a digital-first world.
My presentation covered a variety of important topics, including:
