First Bank of Nigeria holds its fifth summit
By Ibidunni Banjoko
First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Nigeria’s leading financial inclusion services provider, has held its 2021 edition of the summit which is the fifth in its series. The summit, with the theme, “Open Banking and its Derivative Opportunities for the Financial Ecosystem”, was designed to create seamless banking experiences and value-added services for customers and stakeholders alike.
The event gathered top industry leaders such as Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe, the Lead Faculty of Tekedia Institute with a PhD in engineering from John Hopkins University, USA, as the keynote speaker; Ankit Sharma, Director at Strategy& a part of the PwC Network; Ope Adeoye, CEO (Chief Plumber) at One Pipe; Aminu Maida, Executive Director, Technology & Operations at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS); Musa Jimoh, Deputy Director, Payment Systems, CBN and Olayinka Situ, Head, Corporate Transformation, FirstBank, as panelists.
Dr. Adesola Adeduntan, MD/CEO First Bank of Nigeria Limited, while delivering his welcome speech, said the summit was organized by the bank to create a global platform for conversations around the future of the financial service sector, specifically in the financial technology space to contribute to rapid evolution of banking and financial services delivery.
In his words: “Open data, cloud technology and artificial intelligence all play together to create the right environment for innovation or evolution for us. Open Banking demonstrates the practical fusion of the variables and remarkable potentials that can redefine product development, customer experience and overall value division between the financial services system, with significant multiplier effect not just for players but also for consumers and financial services products.”
Prof. Ekekwe, on his part, argued that the business of humanity is nothing but the business of numbers. “If you understand the numbers with your customer, you will become a better bank. Any time in any sector or in any industrial system that we have a better understanding of numbers around us, we are going to do that job better. This means the quest to get things better in any industry will be how to build better data system that can help us understand the numbers around that particular industry.”
In conclusion, Prof. Ekekwe highlighted the need for demand and supply to come into perfect equilibrium. “Because supply knows something that demand doesn’t know, somebody has to bring them together. When that person has brought demand and supply into equilibrium point that is when transaction can take place.”
Speaking on the global perspective of Open Banking, Ankit Sharma said: “In Open Banking, there are no collaboration models which allow those who share data forms and services through APIs, and this collaboration is not only between financial services forms, but even with non-financial services forms as well. Open Banking data being shared through APIs basically means when they review data, ownership changes completely. Currently, these are banks who own data of the customers but through Open Banking, this ownership structure is being rewarded. It is the customer who own the data, and it is the customer who decides which entity can access data and for what objectives.”
He continued: “For example, a customer may have three different accounts in three different banks and two different insurance companies. Appropriate finance manager will classify all the expenses and all transactions automatically so that this client can know his financial position in real time.”
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Comment
No comments found.