First Bank stresses need for open banking in Nigeria

The Chief Executive Officer of First Bank Nigeria limited, Dr, Adesola Kazeem Adeduntan, has reiterated the bank’s commitment to supporting start-ups and innovators in Nigeria’s fintech space, noting that the need for open banking in the country cannot be overemphasised.

Dr. Adeduntan disclosed this recently at the just concluded Fintech 5.0 summit organised by a bank in Lagos that brought together experts, policy influencers, regulatory officials as well as key players in the Nigerian financial, banking and technology climate.

“We will also continue to demonstrate our support for start-ups and innovators in the fintech space by providing them with relevant data, support, and infrastructure to enable them to scale appropriately, through our SMEConnect platform,” he said.

Corroborating Dr. Adeduntan, Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe, a keynote speaker at the Fintech 5.0 summit, noted that open banking is a platform where banks are required to share their market data through APIs, which are third-party companies to help drive innovation.

He said: “With open banking, this evolution goes beyond banks to now including insurance, mortgage, etc to drive the new age of application utility era which I expect to be massive.”

“It gives retail customers the opportunity that their data can be aggregated and with an analytic system you can have a better insight of what is happening within your banking experience.

Deputy Director, Payment System of the CBN, Mr. Musa Jimoh, represented by Mr. Olubukola Akinwunmi, said the open banking framework by CBN looks specifically around the risk management environment that they need to be build to ensure that when they go through full blast open banking regime, they can take care of the concerns of customers.