First Bank Nigeria had invited me as keynote speaker at their Fintech 6.0 Summit in October last year, which the bank hosts for its fintech partners. In the course of preparing for my presentation, I had come to realise that the Nigerian economy had been sliding from being the most promising in Africa and losing its way. So, the question I set for myself was what did Nigerian banks and innovators in finance need to do to apply themselves to be relevant to the future of Nigeria. I scoured examples from other economies where innovations in finance contributed in fundamental ways to rebuilding the country. I also repeated some themes that I had enunciated in the past, including the fact that the idea of “financial inclusion” as it is described in the fintech community is not at all what it says it sets out to achieve. I then went on to give examples where banks and their fintech partners can collaborate to build a sustainable economy.
