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The Chief Executive Officer of Coralpay Limited, Chioma Nkechika has stated that available statistics of banked customers vis-à-vis mobile subscribers and the chain of events during the lockdown, especially as relates to the distribution of palliatives, revealed that there is a clear disconnect between the fiscal and monetary policies of the government, which clearly indicates a low performance.
Speaking as one of the distinguished panellist at the maiden edition of the Regtech Africa Roundtable (RAR) – Dialogue Series with the theme: Money Re-imagined in Crisis: Did we just miss the opportunity to demonize cash?, Nkechika proffered useful insights and practical strategies to accelerate growth and sustainability in digital payment adoption with a view to achieving a truly cashless society.
While comparing mobile subscriber penetration and the overall impact on financial inclusion, he stated that, “But if you look at the potential of the market where we have 97m mobile subscribers , you will clearly see that our work in terms of conversion for financial inclusion has not been very strategic. The responsibility we have therefore is to use these data to begin to chart a new path”.
He was of the opinion that as a country, a lot more could have been done to harness and take full advantage of the opportunities presented by the pandemic to deliberately, consciously and strategically enforce the cashless policy.
Acknowledging the huge but untapped potential and opportunities in the pervasive nature of mobile phones for USSD transactions, Chioma said, “there is a lot of infrastructure and ecosystem collaboration in place, the challenge I see however is the will power to harmonize our fiscal and monetary policies to actually walk the talk of Cashless society”.
While highlighting the importance of trust in the dispute resolution mechanism, Chioma stated that, “I particularly like the analogy of the local mechanic and the auto parts seller in Ladipo market where there’s a communal dispute resolution process such that if I buy an auto part and it doesn’t work, I can return same for an exchange. That is dispute resolution based on trust. Do we have that level of trust in our payments system? And where does the trust fail in our payment system?”.
“It goes largely to the way we have structured it. So, it’s not so much about the CBN saying they have reduced dispute from five to two days, which is good, but the problem still comes down to what has made five days not to work? Mastercard and Visa has done dispute resolution all over the world and it has worked for them for years. They have an effective return policy with a sound principle guiding it and everyone is bound by the rules. Why has that not happened in Nigeria? That’s a challenge for the CBN. It’s a challenge for all of us in the ecosystem to deal with”, he said.
In the context of the current challenges and realities posed by cash and other physical payment types, Chioma stressed that there’s need to benchmark and learn from other climes that have successfully achieved same. He stated further that,” What do they have that’s made their system so efficient? Is it a case of trust, data or identification? These things are the nitty-gritty that we need to bring into our payments system that can guaranty that trust so that the guy that buys the auto part can return it the same way. It creates overall trust system across the entire value chain in the payment system.
The Regtech Africa Roundtable (RAR) provides a great platform for leading industry practitioners, tech innovators, serial entrepreneurs and regulators to share insights from an informed position on contemporary innovative regulatory issues to enhance effectiveness, innovation and growth.
© Regtech Africa 2020
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