-by Barnabas Esiet
Regulatory agencies in the country are reviewing their supervisory strategies to contain the socio-economic menace triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Managing Director/ Chief Executive of The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Umaru Ibrahim, disclosed this at a workshop for financial journalist in Kaduna with the theme: “COVID-19 & FinTech Disruption: Opportunities & Challenges for Banking System Stability and Deposit Insurance”.
“The threat of recession, increased national debt, increase in non-performing loans and potential financial crisis has put pressure on regulators to reassess their supervisory activities to strengthen their capabilities to address these challenges and forestall financial crisis.” He said.
Ibrahim reaffirmed NDIC’s readiness to collaborate with strategic stakeholders in the financial industry towards creating awareness and maintaining financial system stability in Nigeria.
Ibrahim said FinTech, which is simply the common term used to describe the technology (internet, mobile devices, software app, cloud services and many more), is central to delivering important financial services that were exclusive to traditional financial institutions.
He however, noted that despite promising innovation and economic growth through disruption of traditional finance, Fintech disruptive financial services such as chip-based debit/credit cards, mobile and web-based payments cloud computing also pose a major challenge to the regulatory model.
“There are two main concerns for the Corporation on Fintech: these are how to identify and insure non-bank deposit taking institutions licensed by CBN and other Agencies … the second is how to tap into the potentials of Fintechs to effectively execute its business processes easily, speedily and reliably.” Ibrahim noted.
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