Babatunde Lemo, the Chairman of Titan Trust Bank, has stated that Nigerian banks are leveraging fintech services to make their businesses sustainable in the digital era.
In an interview where he made this known, Lemo, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said it is undeniable that Fintechs were already making a foray into the financial sector, adding that for the banks to still stay in business, they’ve been leveraging that to their advantage.
“The banking sector is already leveraging fintech as you can see that many of these new microfinance institutions are fintech-led, and many of the new generation banks are fintech-led also. I head Titan Trust Bank, of course, we leverage fintech for all that we’ve been able to do in the past four years. S
o, the banking sector already knows that there is a major disruption in banking activity and that is fintech. It is either they embed that in the way they run their business or they will be overrun by the fintech companies, which are already making a foray into the financial services industry,” he explained.
When asked how Nigerian banks have faired since the COVID-19 outbreak in the country, Lemo gave kudos to them for their resilience, saying “you will find that COVID did not really deter services provision.”
Continuing, he added that “prior to COVID, there was the significant transformation of the banking sector, which is why today you don’t need to visit your bank branch to enjoy banking services. That’s why the banking sector was not terribly affected by COVID. Indeed, they actually assisted in ensuring that we get out of COVID through donations, as they were undertaken through the central bank to fight the virus.
And so, post-COVID, I believe well that it can no longer be business as usual. COVID has actually opened our eyes to better ways of doing things as you can actually work from the comfort of your home. You don’t have to go to work every day of the week, provided of course, you can work from home. For me, I look at the opportunities that COVID has actually provided to mankind and not the setback that we have for the 12 to 18 months that we had COVID.”
