Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem stepped into 2026 with a clear call for deeper tax intelligence and stronger compliance culture as stakeholders converged for the FintechNGR 2026 Outlook webinar themed, Navigating the New Tax Regime.

The high level session, which brought together regulators, operators, and advisors, consistently stressed urgency, clarity, and strategic readiness as the industry confronts sweeping tax reforms.

Setting the tone from the outset, Dr. Stanley Jacob, President of FintechNGR and host of the webinar, openly commended the panelists for what he described as the “extraordinary depth” they contributed across operational, legal, regulatory, and advisory dimensions.

He strongly urged startups, scaleups, and established players to treat tax knowledge as foundational in 2026. According to him, participants must deliberately take notes, ask questions, engage actively, and most importantly act, because the evolving tax environment now directly shapes business sustainability.

He stressed that the Nigerian tax landscape is rapidly becoming more digitised and sophisticated, therefore reducing the grey areas where fintechs previously operated.

Meanwhile, the session moderator, Toyin Olufon, Managing Partner at Lefort, immediately framed the conversation as both urgent and consequential for the ecosystem.

She observed that taxation has remained top of mind for nearly every Nigerian business owner and operator. As the industry enters a year filled with both opportunity and complexity, she explained that no discussion could be more timely than how fintech companies should interface with the new tax regime.

She emphasised that avoidance has never served the ecosystem well and therefore stakeholders must confront the issue directly and collaboratively.

Delivering the keynote, Dr. Tunde Lemo, Chairman of Titan Trust Bank and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, provided a broad governance and policy perspective.

He explained that the new tax framework has compressed roughly 70 fragmented tax laws into four major statutes, namely the Nigerian Tax Act, Nigerian Tax Administration Act, Nigerian Revenue Services Act, and the Joint Revenue Board Act.

He then systematically outlined key changes affecting fintechs, including revised capital gains rules, a new four percent development tax levy replacing prior education taxes, and the introduction of a 15 percent minimum effective tax rate designed to curb avoidance.

More importantly, Lemo repeatedly pushed boards and executive teams to elevate tax governance. He advised fintech boards to establish clear tax strategies aligned with overall business objectives, strengthen internal controls, maintain transparent reporting, and continuously upskill directors on emerging tax risks.

He also encouraged operators to build proactive relationships with regulators and policymakers in order to build trust and credibility in the fast evolving ecosystem.

While he acknowledged challenges such as foreign exchange constraints and reporting ambiguities, he nonetheless pointed to opportunities in leveraging incentives, tax exempt instruments, and the newly created tax ombudsman framework.

Expanding the macroeconomic context, Tim Silom, Partner at PwC, delivered a data driven intervention that sharpened the urgency of reform. He argued that beyond the traditional certainties of death and taxes, Nigeria is now entering a third certainty, namely radical tax transparency powered by technology and data.

He identified what he called Nigeria’s triple structural pressure points: declining oil dependence, a weak tax to GDP ratio compared with the African average, and the high cost of tax collection, which he noted sits around four percent versus the global average of one percent.

According to him, government is now aggressively pursuing a single source of truth across multiple data systems, a move he described as a potential game changer for enforcement and compliance.

Nevertheless, he urged fintechs to treat the new regime not merely as a burden but as a strategic opportunity to build stronger digital infrastructure and attract venture capital.

From the legal and advisory standpoint, Olamide Obajimi, Tax Partner and Chairman of the Tax Appeal Tribunal Lagos Panel 2, delivered a pointed reminder that cross border structuring must now reflect Nigeria’s tightening rules.

He warned that non resident service providers earning income from Nigerian activities may still fall within the Nigerian tax net. Consequently, He urged fintech players to structure technical service agreements carefully and develop a deep understanding of the evolving framework. While classical tax theory once suggested that tax should not drive jurisdictional decisions, he noted that the global move toward tax neutrality and the two pillar solution now makes tax a central strategic consideration.

Providing operator level insight, Dotun Adekunle, Business and Technology Leader in Payments at OPay, explained how large scale fintech platforms are already adjusting. He disclosed that his organisation’s first response to the new regime was not to raise fees but to increase clarity.

Noting that because the platform processes millions of transactions daily across wallets, merchants, and agents, the team quickly prioritised separating actual revenue from pass through funds.

Adekunle revealed that they upgraded ledger and tagging systems, tightened revenue attribution, and aligned finance, tax, product, and engineering teams to work in concert.

At scale, he warned, even a small misclassification multiplied across millions of transactions can create material exposure. Therefore, precision in categorisation and defensible documentation has become non negotiable.

There was a special session  which also featured a fireside chat led by Dr. Jameelah Sharrief-Ayedun of FintechNGR, who engaged Dr. Ayodele Subair, Chairman of the Lagos Inland Revenue Service, in a wide ranging conversation on fiscal reforms and revenue optimisation.

Finally,  the Chairman of the Lagos Inland Revenue Service, also underscored the broader importance of taxation to economic development, while sharing perspectives from his career journey in tax administration. His participation further reinforced the growing collaboration between regulators and the fintech ecosystem.

Collectively, the webinar made one message unmistakably clear, and that is, that Nigeria’s fintech sector is entering a new era where tax clarity, technological transparency, and board level oversight will determine which players scale sustainably.

Unanimously, they agreed that as the ecosystem continues to expand across multiple jurisdictions and increasingly complex business models, these stakeholders repeatedly stressed that early compliance, strong governance, and proactive engagement with regulators will separate resilient fintech institutions from those exposed to regulatory shocks.