Driven by the desire to achieve improved customer-centric digital services and increased consumer control of data and unprecedented levels of innovation, Carbon, AppZone, have collaborated with Open Banking Nigeria, towards the attainment of non-partisan and non-financial Application Programming Interface (API) standards for financial services in Nigeria.
The two financial technology (fintech) players respectively announced their collaboration with non-profit Open Banking Nigeria.
Carbon, formerly PayLater, and AppZone join other industry players like Paystack, Flutterwave, Interswitch, Ernest & Young, Fidelity Bank, Global Accelerex, TeamApt, PwC, and Sterling Bank who have partnered with Open Banking Nigeria.
The collaboration would, among others, further advance ongoing efforts by various financial industry stakeholders in Nigeria for the maximisation of the rapid increase in digital and mobile payments, with the objective of meeting the yearnings of consumers for flexibility and convenience.
“At Carbon, we know that data is more important than oil. We also understand that open banking presents a tremendous opportunity to unlock financial access for millions of consumers and has the potential of transforming the financial services landscape, not only for banks and fintechs but for everyone across the ecosystem,” said Chijioke Dozie, the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of OneFi, the parent company of Carbon.
According to Dozie, Carbon and AppZone will actively participate in diverse phases of the development of common API standards for Nigeria, testing the APIs for certification, and stimulating the adoption of Open Banking standards across the country.
“It follows our innovative leanings as a brand committed to providing credit to the financially under-served and excluded individuals around Africa. We believe that, with Open Banking, we would be able to extend consumer credit to the 40 million unique bank customers across the nation,” said Dozie.
Obi Emetarom, the CEO of AppZone said, “We find open banking critical to the future, especially as we support over 300 financial institutions on BankOne, our banking-as-a-service platform.
“Our partnership with Open Banking Nigeria also comes as a result of our understanding that in our fast-rising digital world, the use of standard APIs is crucial to empower verified third party players to securely leverage technology. Moreso, the adoption of standardised APIs is known to cut cost, reduce connectivity complications and improve turnaround time.”
This fintech-Open Banking Nigeria collaboration, according to Ope Adeoye of Open Banking Nigeria, would “enable further innovation in our financial services industry where the lack of common APIs standards currently constitutes a barrier to innovation, especially in the areas of digital payments expansion and financial inclusion.”
SEYI JOHN SALAU
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
