CEBIH, Systemspecs seal pact to boost financial inclusion

The Committee of e-Business Industry Heads (CeBIH), has sought the support of financial technology firm and owner of Remita, SystemSpecs, to foster collaborations that will stimulate innovation in the industry.

This move is in line with deepening financial inclusion, proffering and adopting technological driven solutions to reach the unbanked.

CeBIH, which is constituted of the upper stratum of electronic business industry practitioners in all banks in Nigeria, is geared towards promoting electronic banking services in line with global best practices, whilst driving its adoption through right policies, standards, technologies and public awareness programs in Nigeria.

CeBIH Chairman, Stanley Jacob, during the courtesy visit to Remita, said financial inclusion, cyber security and collaborations are the new drive for Nigeria’s financial institutions, adding that banks need collaboration to boost the digital economy, and focus more on core banking business.

He noted that achieving set financial inclusion landmark, or banking agenda is not sufficient, as there are some bottlenecks currently affecting emerging financial institutions from getting access at the central level and ensuring ease of doing business.

Calling on Systemspecs to assist in proffering solution to the recurring cyber attack, Jacob also cited security as a huge threat to the banking industry, saying that fintechs have frameworks to tackle it.

On the importance of collaborations within the industry to foster innovation, he said: “Collaboration will not only make work easier, but also build a synergy against security threat. We want fintechs to help us in leveraging technology, because banks cannot meet up with the trend.”
“One of the things we will do is to have a community to look into our charter, to address issues on collaboration and identify challenges that restrict us from reaching other financial institutions,” he added.

He noted that while profit maximisation is paramount, however, “The Internet is changing every business and continuity can only be enhanced by interacting, sharing and repositioning to address key challenges. We need to do more by playing a role in the inclusion framework and this goes beyond banking alone but to insurance, pension, and health care services.”

Also, the Managing Director of Systemspecs, John Obaro, said: “We hope that SystemSpecs will play a vital role in an industry-wide solution on security for other people to key in. No Fintech, no matter how good, can do it alone. We need to embrace the power of collaboration. We are pushing some innovations that are slow for some people to catch up with”.

However, things are getting better now. We are not a bank but we need the banks to deepen our reach and provide more financial solutions to people.”

Obaro added that the fintech company has developed some new products including a solution that gives people better access to loans and a financial solutions technology for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs).