Further to its objective of facilitating an innovation and investment friendly fintech environment driven by collaboration for appropriate regulatory frameworks, the Fintech Association of Nigeria recently engaged the Nigerian House of Representatives Committee on Information and Communications Technology ICT as the delegation of the lower chamber led by the Committee Chairman, Honourable Onawo Mohammed paid an industry consultative visit to the Association. While Welcoming the participants to the meeting, a Governing Council member of the Association, Bunmi Lawson who chaired the occasion stated that the engagement with the Committee is coming on the heels of earlier engagement the Association had with the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions as the Association believes that legislative inputs are very crucial to creating regulations that would stimulate the ecosystem. Lawson further stated that the strength of the Association is the diversity of its membership that cuts across all sectors of the economy as she said the Association on a continuous basis is engaging both local and foreign fintech partners with a focus on job creation and making financial services available to those at the bottom of pyramid using technology. According to her “ the Association is not only stimulating fintech growth in Nigeria but also in the rest of Africa as the Association is leading a formation of the African Fintech Network, a Network to which thirteen countries have subscribed to, in order to open up market access and foster cross-border policy window for fintech products as exportable goods” Making his remarks, the Chairman of the House of Representative Committee on ICT, Hon. Onawo Mohammed alluded to the fact that such engagement with the industry is long overdue as he stated that the visit was better late than never. According to him, his Committee sees it a necessity to engage the industry as a partner in progress in order to bridge the gaps between the industry and legislator, regulators, and government. He further stated that a partnership of this nature is very pivotal to promoting home-grown solutions as he believes the country has enough talents and creativity to solve its peculiar challenges if innovation is adequately encouraged and supported. In his words “since regulation always evolves, key actors need to regularly engage to review the existing regulation and perhaps create new regulation to meet the demands of a dynamic and thriving ecosystem like Fintech” The meeting then went into an interactive session where various issues bothering on funding for startups, incentivisation for innovators, friendly licensing and regulatory regime, tax rebate, infrastructural development amongst others were raised as key areas of concern the Legislator needs to intervene in the best interest of the economy. It was concluded that the Association would be delivering a position paper on the state of fintechs in Nigeria at an upcoming ICT Roadmap conference to be held in Porthacourt from October 10th to 11th 2018. The conference that would bring together all players in the Nigerian technology space including the regulators, government agencies, and ministries, the legislator, the judiciary,

Further to the partnership that exists between the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Fintech Association of Nigeria, the Capital Market Committee, CMC at its 2nd meeting in 2018 held on Thursday, 9th August at the Federal Palace Hotel adopts the prayer from the Fintech Association for the CMC to set up a Committee to draw a Fintech Adoption roadmap for the Capital Market. Ms. Mary Uduk, the Acting Director-General of SEC who chaired the CMC meeting in her opening remarks alluded to the growing influence of fintechs as she stated the need for the Capital Market to take advantage of the fintech offerings in moving the Capital Market forward. She equally emphasised the focus of the Commission on capacity building, knowledge sharing, advocacy and collaboration with relevant entities. According to her, “ the Capital Market needs to create an enabling environment that is attractive enough for fintechs to innovate as the Market should engage actively with the new trend in technology and provide the adequate regulatory framework for proper adoption of suitable technology” In his presentation, the executive secretary of the Fintech Association, Seun Folorunso did state that the Capital Market is not an alien to the wave of technology that began in the 18th century as he mentioned that the dynamic nature of fintechs and diversity of its offerings underpin the perception of fintechs as friends or foes, partners or competitors as well as makes the holistic regulation of the nascent sector difficult worldwide. He said the various advantages the fintech innovation brings to business include the reduction in the cost of doing business, increased efficiencies, security, customer trust and enhanced regulatory compliance. He stated that the fintech helps the Capital Market in improving ways of accessing capital, trade execution, post-trade services, data, analytics and information services, and operations and technology leveraging on core market infrastructure, post-trade digitization, AI & analytics, investment technology and alternative funding platform most of which are built on AI & Robotics, Machine Learning, blockchain technology, regulatory technology amongst others. Seun concluded by saying that for any sector to full benefits from the promises of Fintech, collaboration is very germane as he mentioned that the Fintech Association of Nigeria through its diverse membership base that cuts across all sectors of the economy, its extensive global network and affiliations coupled with its strong local presence and partnership provides a platform for collaboration on policy formulation, technology adoption, startup initiatives, cross-border policy, knowledge empowerment series and advocacy across the board. In his words “ the major emerging innovation trends within the financial services are increasingly global, rather than domestic in nature, therefore, financial services regulator must re-consider existing ways of working and collaborating, in order to balance potential benefits of innovation (for consumers and the financial sector as a whole) with traditional policy objectives, namely financial stability, integrity, financial inclusion, competition and consumer well-being and protection” The presentation was followed by an interactive and discussion session on the propositions by the FintechNGR during which the prayer