Nigeria’s premier and leading financial services provider, FirstBank, on Wednesday hosted the third edition of its annual Fintech summit themed “Banking + Tech = Solving Real Problems”. The event, which featured a conference and panel sessions comprising tech experts, start-ups, regulators and other stakeholders to deliberate pressing issues, trends and upgrades in the application of technology in the financial services industry. Victor Asemota, Founder, Swifta Systems & Services, was the Keynote Speaker at the event.

With the evolution that has taken place in the financial services industry in recent times, especially through the advent of technological inclusion in business operations across all industries, this year’s event focused on how technology can aid the solving of large scale societal problems within the context of financial services in Nigeria.

According to Gbenga Shobo, Deputy Managing Director, First Bank of Nigeria Limited, “Our Fintech Summit 3.0 was convened to set the tone for discussions that promote disruptions in the digital space, especially in the financial industry, as we recognise the opportunities for inclusive growth and influence of FINTECH not just in banking but also business operations across all industries. The 2019 edition of our FINTECH summit would build-up from the successes achieved in the last two editions.”

He added: “FirstBank, in the last few years, has used technology to deliver solutions to promote financial inclusion. With over 33,000 Firstmonie Agents in 36 states doing over N2 trillion worth of transactions, we are reducing poverty with our Agency Banking footprint. Our Firstmobile application has become the foremost mobile banking application in the country with over 3 million users doing over 14 million transactions monthly. It is one of the major gateways for Financial Inclusion where everyone can download the app and open an account at their own convenience! This was not the case a few years ago. Our USSD channel, *894#, is also solving Financial Exclusion problems for those who do not have easy access to internet data. With over 8 million users today, transactions worth over N4 trillion have been consummated using this channel.”

The panel sessions comprised experts with over 200 combined years of experience in the Financial and Technological Industry space to deliberate on topical issues in today’s technologically driven business world.

Amongst the FirstBank team of speakers and moderators at the summit were Folake Ani-Mumuney, Group Head, Marketing & Corporate Communications; Olayinka Shittu, Chief Transformation Officer; Oluwatoyin Aina, Group Head, Energy Downstream & Int. Oil Trading; and Taiwo Shonekan, Head, Customer Experience & Value Management.

Debo Odunlana, CEO, Doctoora Health; Damilola Emuze, COO/Co-Founder, Scholarx; Edward Popoola, CTO/Co-Founder, Cowrywise and Chinedu Azodoh, Chief Technology Officer, Max.Ng, were the panelists in the Solving Lifestyle Problems session.

The Solving Business Problems panel session included Victor Asemota, Founder, Swifta Systems & Services; Lola Ekugo, Head, Digital Innovation Lab, FirstBank; Akindele Phillips, CFO/Co-Founder, Farmcrowdy; Deepankar Rustagi, CEO/Founder, Vconnect & Omnibiz and Dayo Ademola, Head of Innovation, EFInA.

The panelists in the Solving Regulatory, Security & Legal Problems were the Sam Okojere, Director, Payment System Management Dept, CBN; Tosin Faniro-Dada, Head, Startups (Lagos Innovates), LSETF; Odunoluwa Longe, Co-Founder, DIY-Law & The Longe Practice; Bunmi Akinyemiju, CEO, Venture Garden Group and Harrison Nnaji, Chief Information Security Officer, FirstBank.

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