A few years ago, Nigeria’s FinTech industry was in its infancy; today, it’s a mature, major player on the African continent. Consumers are warming up to the sector, and the industry as a whole is becoming more widely accepted as a result of more partnerships with established businesses.
There are trending sub-industries inside the industry that are helping to strengthen the economy as a whole. Some of the most promising new developments include electronic means of transaction, investing, capital raising, asset management, and banking.
According to Statistica, Digital Investment will be the industry’s biggest market this year, with a total transaction value of US$58.37m by the fourth quarter.
By 2027, the Digital Investment market is predicted to have 146.10 million users and an average transaction value of US$15.78 per user by 2024.
The findings are not unexpected given the amount of persons seeking low-cost and easy-to-use investing choices. Consumers are increasingly reliant on mobile payment alternatives, and this trend has led to an unprecedented rise in the popularity of digital payments.
Nonetheless, despite the magnitude of the market, the rural environment is still struggling to catch up, and this poses a danger to the country’s ability to achieve full financial inclusion.
Therefore, corporations with social duties aimed at fostering economic growth are eyeing opportunities to fund developments that would strengthen the banking sector.
Telecom giant MTN Nigeria is one such company. Over the weekend, it awarded a total of $10,000 (about N12m) to three Nigerian tech startups that had created novel concepts to strengthen the Nigerian financial Technology, Fintech business.
This was done to keep its word and back the top three creative ideas from its inaugural MoMo Hackathon, which sought to find ways to hasten financial inclusion and digitalization of payments throughout Africa.
MTN MoMo Hackathon 2023 Winners
The Hackathon Weekend was won by Oluwapelumi Yusuf, a young tech innovator.
Yusuf took home the ultimate award of $5,000 USD for developing Rova Pay, which goes beyond traditional payment processing by making use of MoMo APIs.
Rova Pay’s automated USSD service allows its users to conduct financial transactions without access to the internet or the need to manually dial a PIN.
Not everyone at the MoMo Hackathon was as impressive as Oluwapelumi Yusuf. Third place went to Isaac Odinaka Franklin, whose solution, Clique Plus Pay, was developed in collaboration with Marvis Igbokwe and Favour Ajie Divine and received a cash reward of USD 2,000.
Tech entrepreneurs, inventors, and developers from all over the world converged on Lagos for the hackathon’s final event to work on projects that would hasten the digitalization and expansion of Africa’s financial system.
While officially opening the hackathon, Elsa Muzzolini, Chief Commercial Officer, MoMo PSB, commented on the significance of the event within the Nigerian fintech sector, stating, “At MoMo, we stand firm in our belief that innovation thrives not just within our brand, but within the collective of stakeholders.” That is why we are giving developers the skills and resources required to accelerate reaching those who are excluded from financial access or perceive that financial services are not personalised to their requirements. It is a shared goal of ours to increase people’s access to financial services. By making MoMo available to developers all throughout Nigeria, we provide them with the tools they need to create life-changing apps.
