A leading Africa-focused fintech platform, PalmPay, has called for collaboration and innovation among banks and fintechs to drive financial inclusion at the last mile. The call came from the Head of Partnerships, PalmPay, Chibuzor Melah, who made this known during the Nigeria Fintech Forum held recently in Lagos. The event themed – Building the Next Frontiers for Nigeria’s Fintech, brought together key stakeholders from both the public and private sectors, including regulators to discuss the rapid advancements in Nigeria’s financial technology industry.Speaking on a panel session themed: Rewriting the rules: Building an open, innovative and collaborative bank of the future, Melah noted that “PalmPay is a technology-driven company that believes in collaborating and innovating to deliver value to customers.“What has given us success in the past 5 years of operation is our investment in data which gives us insights into customer behaviour. This enables us to create tailor-made solutions suitable for our customers. Our insight driven strategy has helped us reach out to the unbanked thereby building trust in open banking,” he said.“We have succeeded by collaborating with other players in the financial sector. We believe that there’s still a lot more to do in building trust, driving financial inclusion in the last mile,” he added.The financial sector has undergone incredible changes. According to the EFInA Access to Finance (A2F) Survey 2023 report, the formal financial inclusion in Nigeria has grown significantly from 56% in 2020 to 64% in 2023. Melah said: “This success can be attributed to collaborative efforts between banks and fintechs but more collaboration can take place. Interestingly, the challenges we face today have opened opportunities to collaborate to gain new markets, deliver new products to benefit the economy.”
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