CBN, banks, FinTechs, others to speak at FICAN Conference

Chioma Obinagwam

The 2018 annual conference of the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) will hold in Lagos on 15th and 16th of September, 2018
The conference, with the theme: “Banks, Fintech and Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion Journey,” has the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor as the keynote speaker. There will also be representatives from the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC).
The guest speaker will be Dr. Yinka David-West, who is the Digital Financial Inclusion Specialist at the Lagos Business School.
The event will also feature a panellist session with some bank chief executives, Financial Technology (FinTech) operators, as well as regulators to discuss the sub-theme: “Financial Inclusion: the Journey So Far.”
In a statement, FICAN said that FinTech companies and financial innovation are changing the competitive landscape of financial intermediation.

“Every commercial bank today knows what services to upgrade; because customers are already carrying out such transactions with FinTech startups.
In the same manner, financial inclusion has continued to assume increasing recognition across the globe among policy makers, researchers and development oriented agencies.”

Continuing, it said the conference will be a step forward to finding the nexus, and its implications for meeting the financial inclusion target. It will also help to define roles that traditional banking and FinTechs occupy in this journey.

The Central Bank of Nigeria in collaboration with stakeholders had launched the National Financial Inclusion Strategy aimed at further reducing the exclusion rate to 20 per cent by 2020.
Among other things, the conference will bring together experts from global multilateral financial institutions, public and private sector players, to highlight and examine the various options available for bringing the unbanked into the financial system using technology.

It is also a learning conference designed to enhance awareness, deepen understanding of financial journalists on the role of financial technology in rendering banking services cheaper, faster and conveniently.
The conference will be attended by journalists covering money market, capital market and the Insurance industry, from the print and electronic media.