Leaders and players in Nigeria’s fintech space recently converged at TechConnect 5.0, the latest instalment in a series of regional events designed to help businesses understand the crucial role fintech plays in adapting their strategies to the new normal. There, Wale Williams, chief technology officer of Union Bank of Nigeria, spoke on a wide range of issues, including how compliance is helping Nigerian banks scale innovation. Dennis Erezi caught up with the CTO days after the event to discuss several topics, including regulatory and compliance challenges.
At TECHCONNECT 5.0, you highlighted compliance as an enabler of innovation. In practical terms, how can Nigerian financial institutions integrate compliance into product development from day one?
Nigerian financial institutions can integrate compliance early by embedding compliance practices directly into product squads, just like engineering and UX. This means compliance requirements are translated into user stories, design decisions, and acceptance criteria from inception. In practice, this reduces rework, shortens approval cycles, and ensures every product feature is “born compliant.” Using automated compliance checklists and workflow tools also helps teams validate regulatory alignment continuously, not just at the end.
You spoke about RegTech as a game changer. What specific RegTech tools or capabilities do you believe will have the biggest impact on Nigeria’s financial sector in the next 3–5 years?
In my opinion, the most transformative RegTech capabilities for Nigeria will be the tools listed below. These tools will drastically reduce compliance costs and improve speed. They also do the following:
• AI-powered transaction monitoring for real-time fraud and AML detection.
• E-KYC and digital identity orchestration that leverage NIN, BVN, biometrics, and document verification.
• Automated regulatory reporting that reduces manual preparation and minimizes errors.
• Risk-scoring engines for customers, merchants, and transactions, enabling more precise decisioning.
• API-driven compliance platforms that plug directly into core banking and fintech systems.
These tools will drastically reduce compliance costs and improve speed.
Many fintechs struggle with lengthy regulatory approval timelines. How can embedding compliance early help accelerate market entry for emerging products?
Early compliance helps fintechs and banks avoid late-stage redesigns, regulatory objections, and back-and-forth reviews. When compliance frameworks, risk assessments, and required documentation are prepared upfront, regulatory submissions become cleaner and faster to evaluate. It also signals seriousness to regulators, who tend to fast-track well-prepared applicants. In essence, early compliance removes the unnecessary friction that causes delay.
During the session, you emphasised collaboration. What does effective collaboration between banks and fintechs look like today, and what barriers still need to be addressed?
Effective collaboration is when fintech agility meets bank scale and trust. Practically, it looks like joint product development where banks provide licensing, trust, and infrastructure while fintechs deliver speed and innovation.
There is also open banking integrations and shared data flows.
For the collaboration to work most effectively, there must be clear governance roles, executed SLAs between the parties and defined escalation channels.
The barriers that still have to be addressed include misaligned risk appetites, unclear responsibilities, bureaucratic vendor onboarding process and legacy system limitations. Breaking these requires transparency, simpler onboarding processes, and modernized APIs.
Open dialogue with regulators was mentioned as key. How can institutions build stronger, more proactive relationships with regulatory bodies?
Building a stronger relationship with regulatory Institutions requires deliberate and specific actions. A critical element of these deliberate actions is engaging the regulators proactively, not only when seeking approvals. These build trust and most often engender positive outcomes. Some other actions recommended to strengthen regulatory relationships include the participation in working groups, industry associations, and pilot programs. Maintaining and exhibiting strict internal governance also helps in getting regulators to trust your processes.
Regulators value openness, consistency, and preparedness; institutions that embody this get better support.
Shared infrastructure such as KYC repositories and fraud-detection platforms was highlighted as a catalyst. What steps are needed to scale these shared systems across the ecosystem?
We need to as a country reignite interests in the Nigerian shared IT infrastructure initiatives led by the Central Bank of Nigeria. To scale ecosystem-wide shared infrastructure, Nigeria needs to put in place the following:
• Common technical standards—APIs, data formats, security requirements.
• A governance consortium involving banks, fintechs, switches, and regulators.
• Strong data-protection frameworks to ensure responsible data sharing.
• Operational funding models to sustain, update, and secure the shared systems.
• Mandatory participation policies, especially for fraud and identity systems.
Once scaled, these shared resources dramatically reduce costs, duplication and fraud.
Regulatory sandbox programmes are gaining traction in Nigeria. What role do you see these sandboxes playing in accelerating safe and responsible innovation?
Sandboxes let innovators test products with real users under controlled conditions. They reduce the compliance burden at early stages while giving regulators visibility into new risks. In Nigeria, sandboxes will accelerate approvals for novel digital products. It lowers the entry barriers for startups and helps regulators shape clearer guidelines based on real experiments. Ultimately, we expect sandboxes to encourage responsible innovation without compromising customer protection.
From a CTO perspective, how do you balance the need for rapid innovation with the strict compliance demands placed on legacy financial institutions?
The major challenge for a CTO is how to balance the goal of rapid innovation with the highly necessary brakes imposed by compliance. The idea is not to slow down innovation but to ensure every release passes compliance gates automatically. As CTO, you rely on automated testing, DevSecOps, and continuous compliance tooling so innovation doesn’t create regulatory gaps.
The key is adopting a dual-speed architecture: core banking and compliance controls remain stable and heavily governed.
Innovation layers—APIs, microservices, digital channels—move fast with agile processes.
In your view, what are the biggest misconceptions about compliance in the Nigerian financial ecosystem, especially among younger fintech players?
In the Nigerian financial ecosystem, I think the most common misconceptions include the following:
“Compliance slows innovation.” In reality, early compliance speeds innovation and market entry.
“Compliance is only for big institutions.” Even small fintechs can face sanctions, license withdrawal, or partner offboarding.
“Compliance is only about documentation.” On the other hand , Modern compliance is actually data-driven, technical, and continuous.
“Regulators don’t support innovation.” In reality, regulators support innovation; what they don’t support is unmanaged risk.
Looking ahead, how can the synergy between banks and fintechs shape a more resilient, inclusive, and globally competitive Nigerian financial ecosystem
In Nigeria, a well-aligned partnership model will create a Nigerian financial ecosystem that is more resilient, because risk insights, fraud intelligence, and identity infrastructure are shared.
More inclusive, by using fintech reach and digital channels to serve SMEs and underserved populations. The financial ecosystem would also become more competitive globally, as Nigerian players adopt world-class RegTech, digital-identity systems, and real-time payment infrastructure.
The future belongs to institutions that innovate responsibly, collaborate openly, and leverage compliance as a strategic enabler , not a hurdle.
