SEC DG says fintech will enable financial inclusion

The need to embrace fintech has again been emphasised by Nigeria’s capital market apex regulator, to further deepen the market and attract more young people to the market.

This was stated by Lamido Yuguda, Director General, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during a fintech conference in Lagos on Thursday.

Yuguda who was represented by Abdulkadir Abbas, Director Registration, Exchanges, market Infrastructure and Innovation of the SEC, stated that fintech is a game changer in deepening the capital market and enhancing financial inclusion.

He said the theme ‘Imperative of Fintech in Promoting Financial Inclusion in Nigeria, is very important to the capital market as transformation in the sector is incomplete without fintech.

Abbas said “We can see a kind of game changer and rapid transformation in the financial sector due to fintech. It is a building block for enhancing financial inclusion.

“Traditional means can no longer work, the average age of investors in the capital market is 45-50 years and we are currently trying to attract the millennials to the market and this can be achieved with the aid of fintech.

Read also: SEC urges investors to expose illegal fund managers

“We are exploring ways to leverage on fintech to bring on the young people to the market. The capital market sees fintech as an opportunity and that is one of the ways we intend to change the dynamics of the capital market.

Abbas stated that it was in view of the importance of fintech that the capital market initiated the fintech roadmap which enabled the SEC to come up with innovations and rules to support the initiative.

According to him, “We need innovation to deepen and broaden the market and we had to come up with rules to support it like the rules on crowdfunding among others.

“We all saw the success achieved with the electronic offering by MTN, a lot of Nigerians were able to subscribe with their phones and other gadgets conveniently. We realised that one of the ways to unlock investment opportunities is through fintech and we are stepping up such strategies to deepen the market”.

He however expressed the need to strike a balance between investor protection and innovation adding that financial inclusion cannot be achieved with it a good strategy for financial literacy.

Abbas expressed the readiness of the SEC to collaborate with other regulators and stakeholders in the quest to attract more investors to the capital market and grow the economy.