Dear FinTechNGR Stakeholders,

Firstly, let me congratulate every single one of us for making it through 2021, despite the hurdles and challenges faced both individually and collectively, and wish you a prosperous 2022. As an Association, we were faced with the dire need to galvanize our ecosystem; to respond positively and creatively to the sometimes gloomy global economic outlook; support the growth of the businesses of our members; and assist regulators and the government in creating an enabling environment for innovation, economic growth and employment. In 2021, our ecosystem played a significant role in job creation and continued to unleash the human talents that are amply available in our country.

The Nigerian FinTech ecosystem maintained its growth trajectory within the African continent with three more unicorns – Flutterwave, OPay and Andela – joining Interswitch and Jumia as five out the seven unicorns on the continent. The launch of eNaira by the CBN shows that innovation is not limited to FinTech firms alone  – rather, regulators are now also actively taking part in the next digital wave, thereby opening up more opportunities for entrepreneurs to innovate.

In the year under review, Nigerian FinTech startups raised a whopping $1.37B out of $4B total raised by African startups, despite the effects of the pandemic. Nigeria raised the largest chunk, followed by other key FinTech hubs – South Africa ($838 million), Egypt ($588 million) and Kenya ($375 million). Outside the big four, other proactive markets were Senegal and Tanzania whose startups raised $222m and $96m respectively, according to Connecting Africa. One of the biggest success stories was Ghanaian FinTech Chipper Cash, which raised a total of $250m in 2021. Without Chipper Cash, Ghana would have raised $48 million.

Nigeria’s FinTech ecosystem’s stronger and improved brand appeal to global investors shows that Nigeria is an economy positioned for growth, financial inclusion and a narrowing poverty gap. In addition to this, Nigeria was ranked as 6^th in real-time payments by Finshots, and also as one of the top crypto trading countries in the world by Statista, amongst other ground-breaking feats which attest to the value of our ecosystem. That being said, FintechNGR must continue to develop robust venture capital and private equity channels to support innovators that have significant growth potential. Simplifying and optimizing the process for raising capital would give more investors the opportunity to benefit from the growth of these companies and create wealth for the economy.

Without a doubt, FintechNGR played a key role as an enabler of these feats; the Association provided direction and support in various ways such as:

• The formal launch and graduation of the maiden cohort of the DigiStuds project, a Digital Academy Project aimed at equipping 500,000 students of public tertiary institutions in Nigeria with relevant digital skills.

• The launch of the Nigeria FinTech Census – an aggregated data on FinTechs in Nigeria done in partnership with EY, aimed at helping stakeholders to make informed decisions on the ecosystem.

• The sustainability of the Reguvators’ Forum, a platform of interaction between regulators and innovators in Nigeria created to enable the stakeholders to collaborate and co-create solutions for balancing innovation and regulation.

• Deepening of collaboration and technical skills through various training and knowledge events such as the Nigeria FinTech Week (NFW), World FinTech Festival (in collaboration with Singapore FinTech Week), Intercontinental Webinars and various ad-hoc interventions on regulations.

Therefore, it is no surprise that FinTechNGR membership grew by 24%, as we attracted new strategic members such as Facebook and many others, who are keen to take part in the critical role we play and the impact we have on the ecosystem as an Association. We also experienced the renewal of existing memberships and several upgrades of membership plans to a higher category. For this, I want to say thank you for aiding the improved visibility of the Association. Because of you all, we fostered more strategic alliances, and deeper engagements such as more meaningful round table discussions with Regulators and wider industry participants. I would also like to thank our Board of Trustees, Governing Council, and the very able management team for providing exemplary leadership and direction in the course of 2021.

As we look forward to consolidating our gains and sustaining the momentum as an ecosystem in 2022, I would like to urge everyone to leverage the platforms created by the Association in scaling the Nigerian FinTech ecosystem and further increasing our visibility on the global scale, having earned a worthy seat on the table when it comes to advancements in FinTech related matters in our country and beyond. This year, we will continue to drive the relentless growth of innovative solutions and start-ups within our ecosystem and membership network.

I know we can count on each other to drive our industry to much greater heights in 2022. Let’s make this happen.

Yours faithfully,

Ade Bajomo

President, FinTech Association of Nigeria

FintechNGR