A vailable data indicate that consumer protection in Nigeria, like other developing countries had remained at the lowest ebb in spite of the prevalence of unwholesome business practices.
Although several consumers’ protection act in developing economies recognised the rights of consumers, it does not specifically provide how these rights should be enforced, when infringed upon. Consumers’ awareness of their rights and protection laws is low, which results in the absence of litigations whenever the rights are infringed against.
Over the years, industry players have argued the fact that regulatory authorities need to be more proactive in safeguarding the rights and welfare of consumers in Nigeria. Hence, they have called for intensified consumer education, awareness initiatives that focus on consumers in order to increase their knowledge base as well as push for the amendment, which has resulted into the newly signed Federal Competition and Consumer Protection (FCCP) Act.
Convergence of Fintech and consumer protection
Consumers as a class have also gone through phenomenal changes. The changing needs of children, millennial and young adults have been some of the most potent forces shaping the market. However, many consumers today still lack the quantitative and literacy skills necessary to cope with more complex, information-intense marketplaces.
Similarly, new technologies introduce new technical and legal issues that represent new level of challenges for consumers especially in technology enabled spaces such as e-commerce, financial services industry and telecommunication. These and other changes in socio-economic conditions have had implications for consumers, resulting in emergence of diverse issues for regulators and other stakeholders with the mandate of protecting consumers.
The financial services and technology (Fintech) space of the Nigerian ecosystem in the past few years no doubts has poised some challenges for the traditional financial service providers, which to a large extent presented some issues of consumers’ protection.
The innovation of Fintech on the one hand created a huge value to consumers while reducing the financial exclusion rate which in return leads to economic growth and development through the various economic activities engineered by leveraging technology. However, the big issue around protecting the rights and privileges of consumers with technology adoption in the financial service sector is the convergence between Fintech and consumers’ protection.
The Fintech Association of Nigeria (FintechNGR), established in 2017 as the voice of Fintech in Nigeria that is working to create inclusive national association for Fintech ecosystem in Nigeria. The association which is set to be a self-regulatory institution for the sector focuses on three core area to accelerate, advocate and connect players in the sector, and also ensure principles of consumer protection and rights are enshrined in Nigeria Fintech ecosystem.
The CAFEi intervention
The Consumer Awareness and Financial Enlightenment Initiative (CAFEi) was recently launched in Lagos to address consumers’ complaint especially in the financial sector and ensure that response time are drastically reduced in order to rendered satisfactory services to the banking public. This was in response to increasing complaint by the various users of financial services in Nigeria especially on the social media space due to the slow response time of the deposit money banks.
The initiative that has been endorsed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIBN) will expectedly drive consumer awareness of financial institutions offerings in the market and boost service delivery across the industry value-chain.
Debola Osibogun, the President of CAFEi, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) initiative created to serve the financial sector said the initiative is aimed at driving financial literacy and consumer engagement in Nigeria, noting that the initiative would elevate consumer literacy in the country.
“Our mandate is to drive consumer education in furtherance of the society here accountability is embed in our DNA and a country where contracts, written or implied, are enforced for the benefits of ensuring shared responsibility as well as prosperity,” said Osibogun.
According to Osibogun, her engagement with stakeholders in the financial sector shows that individuals, organisations and regulators are genuinely concerned about forging inclusive progress and sustainably shared prosperity, hence the initiative would work in collaboration with industry experts to improve the delivery of goods and services across the country especially in the financial sector through its annual symposium.
Osibogun opined that CAFEi have been at the forefront of driving the conversation at the national level for increased consumer education and awareness. “We’ve had series of publications in the newspapers to mark World Savings Day, International Women’s Day and the Global Money Week,” said Osibogun stating that CAFEi have been on media tours to numerous radio stations in its campaign to ensure consumers in Nigeria are aware of their rights in relationships with providers of products and services.
“As elites, we carry a huge moral burden to ensure that we safe guide the interest of every Nigerian and remain strong advocates for a society where the rights of consumers of services and products are protected. The mutual trust between providers and consumers of goods and services is an important ingredient in the functioning of any society and we all share in the obligation to uphold this relationship.
“As a nation, we have survived failure of several sectors in the past; however, we stand no chance of any meaningful progress in a failed system where this relationship is not respected. Therefore, it behooves on us to ensure the providers of these services continue to enjoy the trust of consumers and vice versa. Finding the right balance between the increasing expectations of consumers and the interests of the service providers remains paramount as we continue to strive for a society that is worth bequeathing onto the next generation of Nigerians.
“The solutions we are looking for will lie both in empowering consumers to make more informed decisions, and in strengthening the market conduct practices of institutions through effective regulation and enforcement. I am positive that you will all agree with me that one without the other is wholly inadequate,” Osibogun concludes.
Uche Messiah Olowu, President of the CIBN, while speaking on the initiative expressed the desire of the institute to collaborate with CAFEi and the deposit money banks to improve and deepen consumers’ engagement across the value-chain of the industry.
The CIBN president said the institute has a remedial department which is the ethics and sub-committee that takes care of unresolved complaints of consumers in addition to what the CBN is doing in the consumer protection department.
“For us, we are pushing that we are not yet there, but we will get there because we have various Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working with the CIBN focused on policy advocacy; you will begin to see a lot of improvements. I think we need to give it more bite in terms of awareness to the public because we have resolved a lot of issues in billions of Naira where consumers’ complaints have been resolved,” Olowu stated.
The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection (FCCP) Act
The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection (FCCP) Act, which was recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari aims at promoting a competitive market and protecting consumer rights in Nigeria. Prior to the enactment of the act, there was no single piece of legislation regulating competition in Nigeria.
Thus provisions of laws regulating competition were found in various legislation such as the ISA; the Nigerian Communications Act 2003; the Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005 amongst other laws. However, the new act applies to all businesses in Nigeria and supersedes all laws on competition and consumer protection.
The FCCP act prohibits unfair business practices or abuse of dominant market position by any company, as well as any agreement to restrain competition such as agreements for price fixing, price rigging, collusive tendering and others. To regulate and facilitate competition, the President may from time to time, by order published in the Federal Gazette, declare that prices for goods and services specified in the order shall be controlled in accordance with the provisions of the act.
In addition, the act mandates the commission to administer the provisions of the act as well as set up the Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal to adjudicate over conducts prohibited by the act and exercise jurisdiction in accordance with the act.
Bala Augie and Seyi John Salau
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