The grand finale of InterSwitch TechConnect 5.0 initiative, which is now in its fifth year, has opened discussions on the future of payments industry, its prospects and challenges with a view to addressing such challenges going forward, writes Emma Okonji.

Having gone across Nigeria, from Enugu to Abuja, the grand finale of InterSwitch TechConnect 5.0 was held in Lagos on Tuesday, which brought together industry players to discuss issues in the payment industry.

The issues about innovation and regulatory compliance were some of the key discussions raised, which have over the years, remained at loggerheads with each other.

Opening the discussion, MD, Payments Processing and Switching, Interswitch Purepay, Mr. Akeem Lawal, said: “When discussions are carried out on things like innovation and regulatory compliance, they don’t usually fall into the same world. But this year we want to bring those two conversations together. And the reason we’re doing this is that we have realized, as InterSwitch, based on our experience over the last 22 years that no organisation can build sustainable innovation without compliance. It’s the basis on which trust is built. It’s the basis on which customer experience and satisfaction is built. And it’s the basis on which sustainable growth is built. So this year our theme is really around innovation, collaboration, and compliance. And this event has brought not just the industrial players, but also the regulators together to have conversations around how we can create a united frontier towards building the products and services that will impact the future of all of us as Nigerians.”

Emerging Technologies

Speaking on the emerging technologies and products of InterSwitch, MD, Verve International at Interswitch, Vincent Ogbunude, said: “In terms of emerging technologies, we have quite a number. And the good thing is that we are not lagging behind if you look at the global front. Some of the things that we are putting forward, which this year’s theme also tries to put in scope in terms of innovation, collaboration, and compliance, are things that will help to foster speed of innovation, but at the same time ensure that the market is compliant and that the market is ensuring that whatever we offer to the customers, we give them confidence, security, and it will help push the whole adoption of electronic payments.”
According to him, some of the things that we have as emerging technologies, one of them is the ability to tokenize payment instruments. In other words, today we do have quite a number of cards in the market, and Verve card is already leading in terms of the card issuance in Nigeria. We have actually crossed the 100 million milestones, in terms of the number of cards that are out there. That is one of the technologies that we think will be well adopted in the coming months, Ogbunude said.

TechConnect 5.0

Giving details about TechConnect 5.0, Executive Vice President, Group Marketing and Corporate Communications, Interswitch Group, Cherry Eromosele, said Interswitch decided to use the theme of this year’s conference to break silos and connect innovators, regulators, and institutions for shared progress.

“It’s about joint responsibility in building African digital transformation. When these three powerful stakeholders come together and support each other, we see how that helps us to drive sustainable growth,” Eromosele said.
According to her, TechConnect 5.0 conference provides a platform where everyone can come together, share ideas, share insight in terms of how do we sort of move the industry forward, which creates an enabling environment for us to all compete favorably. What the platform does for the different stakeholders that are involved, whether they’re innovators, regulators, or the institutions, is to unite them to innovate and develop solutions that will further drive and sustain the future of payment industry in Nigeria and beyond.

Lawal further spoke about the need for innovation and compliance to complement each other in other to boost tech development in Nigeria. According to him, regulation is not just a checklist, not a set of rules, but the guardrails that make sure that whatever innovators are putting in the market will work for the customers and also promote trust and not create problems in the future.

“In Interswitch, we have a concept that we call a shared future. It’s built into the product innovation process itself. It’s not something that we add at the end. It’s the reason why in every of our team, we have compliance involved, we have risk involved. Even from the point of ideating, what are we even thinking about? How are we going to build it? How do we solve this problem for the customer? And because that has worked for us, it’s a concept that we’ve been taking to the industry. Last year, we invited a number of industry stakeholders and we spoke about a lot of things, in the area collaboration,” Lawal said.

He stressed the need for collaboration between industrial practitioners and the regulator, which according to him, is the reason why we have the regulator with us in our TechConnect 5.0 conference.

Enugu, Abuja TechConnect Insights

Giving insights about the TechConnect 5.0 activities I Enugu and Abuja, Eromosele said in Enugu, Intderswitch invited quite a lot of businesses, including SMEs and microfinance banks. So, a lot of the focus in Enugu was around financial inclusion, and the challenges that customers face and the people who are serving them, the microfinance banks. We looked at how technologies could help to address those challenges and create the solutions that work for everybody, not just those of us in Lagos.
“There were a number of panel sessions, and there were a number of demos. And I think a lot of insights that came were that we can use technology, collaboration and partnerships to build the products and services that create financial inclusion. “When we moved to Abuja, again, we had a lot of our customers who are more in the public sector, in government, the agencies and practitioners. But we also had a number of financial institutions as well. And I think a lot of what came out from that was the need to collaborate between public and private sector to find solutions.
The need to recognise that regulation, compliance is important if you are going to provide services into the public sector participants,” Eromosele said.

What Next?

Fielding questions from journalists on what the next conference will like after TechConnect 5.0, Lawal said: “First of all, it’s going to shape the way in which it’s going to do business for the next. We’re taking all of that insight and putting it into a strategic framework of how we’re going to execute and move forward as an industry. It will shape how we engage with the industry in terms of our collaboration and in terms of our partnership. It will shape the kind of products and services that we build, and a lot of those products and services will come from collaboration with many of the tech innovators.”

Addressing the issues around competition in the industry, Lawal said Interswitch has built its technology to be an open platform for everybody, whether you are a competitor or not. “We see everybody on the industry as partners and not competitors. So, our technology is built in a way that it is open to all players.
That’s the rule, even with the APIs that we expose. And APIs are important because you are allowing people to innovate using infrastructure that you built,” Lawal further said.

Impact

Speaking about the impact of TechConnect 5.0, Lawal said it has created business trust, adding that Interswitch will continue to use the platform to reinforce its message of trust and collaboration. “We use the platform to be open about what our fears are, what our aspirations are. And we use it to build alignment with all of our stakeholders and partners. We use it to strengthen the relationships that we have. But we also find that this event creates new alliances, and almost every time we find a new partnership, a new alliance, a new solution comes up,” Lawal added.