17 years ago I’m lot younger a bit more
hair full of it
I think I can change the world there
those who say I’m still full of it now
with a group of fellow young men we came
together to beat for one of the licenses
that was auctioned by the federal
government for utilization in the gsm
space we were fortunate enough to be one
of the at that stage three successful
bidders out of the four licenses that
were going to be awarded but there was a
unique opportunity that came our way and
that came lightly because up until the
end of the 90s mobile telephony had been
driven largely in the developed world
and the development had been based on
the ability to sell lines to post page
subscribers and post paid subscribers
are people who have a credit history so
you go to them you sell them a line and
you they basically pay after the service
has a cord prepaid as a service was only
coming in at towards the end of the 90s
but it was not used anywhere in a big
way because those markets considered
that the revenues that they would get
from people subscribers were going to be
small
and that that market was not what they
were after because that was a market for
people without credit the business plans
for most of the players who are going to
commit an idea therefore called for
subscriber numbers over the first three
to five years in the thousands so a lot
of big players didn’t beat their arrow
as you
now no prepaid was launched in Nigeria
at the time the networks came on board
and because we didn’t have credit
history Niger at that point in time it
was the only means forced to acquire a
significant amount of subscribers the
market exploded we talked about
subscriber numbers in the millions today
we are looking at mobile penetration in
idea of 90% 99% of it on the prepaid
platform in an irony the mobile network
that actually first launched prepaid
services worldwide was an African
Network did not beat for the Nigerian
license until date has been struggling
to enter Nigeria in faraway Kenya there
was a mobile network operator that had
government shareholding significant
eventually there was a lack of
interconnectivity between financial
institutions so the ability to transfer
money from one account to another was
difficult the mobile network based on
his size was able to build a large
agency business and that move our
network realizing the opportunity that
existed in the financial space launched
mobile money services that service is
today the pride and joy of everyone who
talks about mobile money a service is
called and better and better sits with
20 million subscribers has worked
wonderfully well in Kenya where it is
the biggest means of person-to-person
and person to business payment but it
was a perfect storm for Kenya to date
the owners and developers of the
impassive product have not been able to
translate that success to any other
country it has not moved across borders
it solved a unique problem for a country
let’s bring it back to Nigeria Nigeria
has always been an extremely competitive
market space
banks especially compete aggressive with
each other however they came together
under an umbrella an IPSS niger
interbank settlement system with the
regulator playing a key role and created
an open platform that allows for
payments to go through seamlessly from
one bank account to another today based
on that platform and the collaboration
that exists between the banks you do
three plus zero payment not only do you
do t plus zero you can actually put
somebody’s account number in and it will
validate the name of the individual that
service has been working fantastically
well in the country and a great example
of collaboration amongst people who if
they have chosen to compete would have
ended up isolating subscribers or cost
customers
– ATM machines that were small and not
Nestle national in coverage three
different stories that talk about
technology collaboration and the
understanding of the characteristics of
the region that you are trying to put a
solution in and all deal with Financial
Inclusion yet in Nigeria we keep
debating Financial Inclusion from a pure
black and white perspective it’s either
you have access to financial services or
you don’t and literally it isn’t as
black and white as that there is a
spectrum to be played with recently
Lagos Business School has actually come
up with a study that shows five segments
and this is not the limit of what can be
done five segments that can deal with
that that showed the spectrum that’s
available you’ve got the band people who
today have access to financial services
run their phones regularly
you’ve got the underserved those who
actually have accounts but are likely
inactive in terms of financial
you’ve got the under band people who
operate with either community banks or
banks like that microfinance
institutions
you’ve got the unbanned people who
actually carry out financial
transactions economic activity rather
not financial transaction people who
sell goods and services keep their money
but don’t put it in any form of
financial institution or the other and
you’ve got the excluded today the ones
we’re trying to do credit schemes for in
terms of trying to get family credit
into them yet we keep trying to do a
one-size-fits-all model it can’t work
because each of these segments has its
own particular characteristics different
players with different opportunities for
them to do different things in that
segment today we have a hundred and
eighty six million people who hold who
are registered as mobile phone
subscribers but in terms of unique
mobile phone subscribers that speak
because that’s accounting for
multi-screen we have about eighty six on
the PV and salad we have seventy five
million people who own accounts or
seventy four million accounts rather
unique once again unique identities on
the bbm base thirty four million a lot
of the services were offering and
talking about relate largely to those
who are operating with Vivien numbers
now billions the fantastic tool it has
done wonders it has been it has found a
niche place where we have failed to deal
with identity in Nigeria but thirty four
million people out of a supposed
population of 200 are we to abandon the
rest mobile today gives you access to
another over forty odd by the way that
forty oh that’s the population
of Canada assuming we don’t all go there
soon that mobile is a route to get to
them a mobile is only a route to those
40 we still have to find a route to the
extra we have to offer them services we
have to find a way to bring them on
board and create activity for them today
in the segments that we play with on ni
p which is instant payment which is when
you when you go online and decide to pay
somebody to a an app or your bank only
11.5 million of the 34 million people
are actually active on that platform
that’s 11.5 out of 34 and I’m still not
talking of the balance of the 14 not to
talk of the balance that exists but that
works well for that 11.5 million and
that’s a service that is provided well
so app developers they’ve developed
brilliant apps now that work for banks
and for those who use it it is fantastic
I’m sure majority of yet don’t write
checks anymore there is no collaboration
that’s going on between telcos and banks
to deal with ussd ussd allows those who
are who don’t use smart phones who use
what we call future phones we like to G
phones to actually do mobile money
transactions we haven’t got the
penetration that we want yet because if
we did the band of people utilizing it
would grow it’s a market that is there
to be attacked and dealt with a market
that’s there to be served it’s separate
segments god filter companies today who
do wonderfully well with data there’s a
big ecommerce giant today who basically
takes data that it obtains from when it
sells you a product when you receive the
product when you how you pay for the
product and what you do whether you
return the product or not and whatever
other orders you do to find a way to
give you a solution there are companies
today in that space who else
do loans using data algorithms to work
on whether it’s customer data that is
obtained from some level of financial
transactions or data that is obtained
from your banking records that
collaboration that’s working but they
still a lot more that we can do we have
pushed mobile money for quite a while in
Nigeria and it hasn’t worked well why
one of the big things we’ve got to deal
with this trust big issue mobile
companies today we offer value-added
services and I am sure if I asked
majority of you will complain about
double billing that has occurred at some
point in time on those services so if
you see that how do you trust me to hold
your money that’s an issue that has to
be addressed
you’ve got literacy and I’m talking here
specifically financial literacy of more
importantly use case for the man who is
serving goods and services on the street
and is collecting money then same reason
he’s not putting it in the back we
haven’t been able to go and sit down to
convince him of what is in it for him if
he puts that money in the bank we’re too
busy fighting over who gets what
transaction fee when that is really
where our rule is convincing get him to
know the value of future credit of
insurance for his goods there’s the big
gorilla in the room that we have not
dealt with as a country national
identity it’s ridiculous up to this
point we do not have a national identity
scheme that we still have Vivian as a
default with 34 million people that when
you quote Nigeria’s population you use
United Nations or whu-oh as your bait
how we’ve got the regulatory environment
we have to take initiatives and allow
people to innovate but we manage it on
the regulatory environment from a
technology footprint
you will always be behind the curve
because technology goes ahead of
regulation that’s just the nature of the
beast then we’ve got the gold mine we
sit on that we utilize polling data it’s
incredible the amount of data we have as
a country it’s also incredible how we
make decisions based on perceptions and
myths when the data is dead that we can
use the segments I’ve just spoken about
and just pure data please just
understanding analyzing the data that
you’ve got allows you to understand your
market better we’ve got with on
extremely data and we’re sitting down
and watching over the top services which
are big external bodies coming in and
acquiring their own data and we wait for
them to come and use that data to deal
with us in this part of the world I’ll
just go through a speed snapshot of some
of the data we hold this is vivianne
distribution against mobile distribution
it shows you for instance that 20% of
all Vivienne boulders reside in Lagos
State the figure for mobile subscription
is 14% and that those processes the
point where I said mobile mobile is more
distributed by the nature of the beast
there is something this doesn’t show
that is interesting in most states it’s
in the others it has two percent Vivien
population in emo state yet if you did
state of origin as they check it most
states it’s with six percent of billion
all that why are they so much more
interested in financial services and why
are they that mobile if you can answer
some of those questions you can find
nigeria has widely known and accepted
that it has a huge infrastructure
deficit it’s not going to be fixed
quickly in kind of cash that is required
but there is something we can do I know
people talk about leapfrogging
that might not be it what technology
allows us to at least improve the
quality of life of the citizens a small
improvement here makes a huge difference
to the lives of those individuals
technology exists today mobile networks
by the nature of their business rollout
services to rural areas and places where
a lot of other people don’t go those
mobile networks are not optimum the
quality of service we could do a lot
more with that
that’s regulatory but that platform
exists why do we don’t want to spend
half the time thinking or finding other
ways to reach the same people that a
road already reaches there’s a highway
somebody’s built the highway they can
build it better they can continue to
build it we can make the highway an open
platform they get good returns for what
they’ve done in return people offer
services on that platform there’s no
road in the world that doesn’t have
petrol stations where you can buy petrol
book our joints hotels these are all
services services that are built by
innovators that sit here services that
don’t need to go and find ways to and
build a highway of their own we already
have a huge infrastructure deficit we
want to start compounding that I think
there exists an opportunity for us to
fix Nigeria well the Chinese have done
remarkably well in this space I said we
sit down and we are watching other
people come in and take the market from
us let’s create the right regulatory
environment let’s collaborate I showed
you examples collaboration works well
let’s attack the various markets that
really are in our own compounds let’s
focus let’s use the data with God let’s
therefore be able to create innovative
services that will make a difference to
our people thank you [Applause]
hair full of it
I think I can change the world there
those who say I’m still full of it now
with a group of fellow young men we came
together to beat for one of the licenses
that was auctioned by the federal
government for utilization in the gsm
space we were fortunate enough to be one
of the at that stage three successful
bidders out of the four licenses that
were going to be awarded but there was a
unique opportunity that came our way and
that came lightly because up until the
end of the 90s mobile telephony had been
driven largely in the developed world
and the development had been based on
the ability to sell lines to post page
subscribers and post paid subscribers
are people who have a credit history so
you go to them you sell them a line and
you they basically pay after the service
has a cord prepaid as a service was only
coming in at towards the end of the 90s
but it was not used anywhere in a big
way because those markets considered
that the revenues that they would get
from people subscribers were going to be
small
and that that market was not what they
were after because that was a market for
people without credit the business plans
for most of the players who are going to
commit an idea therefore called for
subscriber numbers over the first three
to five years in the thousands so a lot
of big players didn’t beat their arrow
as you
now no prepaid was launched in Nigeria
at the time the networks came on board
and because we didn’t have credit
history Niger at that point in time it
was the only means forced to acquire a
significant amount of subscribers the
market exploded we talked about
subscriber numbers in the millions today
we are looking at mobile penetration in
idea of 90% 99% of it on the prepaid
platform in an irony the mobile network
that actually first launched prepaid
services worldwide was an African
Network did not beat for the Nigerian
license until date has been struggling
to enter Nigeria in faraway Kenya there
was a mobile network operator that had
government shareholding significant
eventually there was a lack of
interconnectivity between financial
institutions so the ability to transfer
money from one account to another was
difficult the mobile network based on
his size was able to build a large
agency business and that move our
network realizing the opportunity that
existed in the financial space launched
mobile money services that service is
today the pride and joy of everyone who
talks about mobile money a service is
called and better and better sits with
20 million subscribers has worked
wonderfully well in Kenya where it is
the biggest means of person-to-person
and person to business payment but it
was a perfect storm for Kenya to date
the owners and developers of the
impassive product have not been able to
translate that success to any other
country it has not moved across borders
it solved a unique problem for a country
let’s bring it back to Nigeria Nigeria
has always been an extremely competitive
market space
banks especially compete aggressive with
each other however they came together
under an umbrella an IPSS niger
interbank settlement system with the
regulator playing a key role and created
an open platform that allows for
payments to go through seamlessly from
one bank account to another today based
on that platform and the collaboration
that exists between the banks you do
three plus zero payment not only do you
do t plus zero you can actually put
somebody’s account number in and it will
validate the name of the individual that
service has been working fantastically
well in the country and a great example
of collaboration amongst people who if
they have chosen to compete would have
ended up isolating subscribers or cost
customers
– ATM machines that were small and not
Nestle national in coverage three
different stories that talk about
technology collaboration and the
understanding of the characteristics of
the region that you are trying to put a
solution in and all deal with Financial
Inclusion yet in Nigeria we keep
debating Financial Inclusion from a pure
black and white perspective it’s either
you have access to financial services or
you don’t and literally it isn’t as
black and white as that there is a
spectrum to be played with recently
Lagos Business School has actually come
up with a study that shows five segments
and this is not the limit of what can be
done five segments that can deal with
that that showed the spectrum that’s
available you’ve got the band people who
today have access to financial services
run their phones regularly
you’ve got the underserved those who
actually have accounts but are likely
inactive in terms of financial
you’ve got the under band people who
operate with either community banks or
banks like that microfinance
institutions
you’ve got the unbanned people who
actually carry out financial
transactions economic activity rather
not financial transaction people who
sell goods and services keep their money
but don’t put it in any form of
financial institution or the other and
you’ve got the excluded today the ones
we’re trying to do credit schemes for in
terms of trying to get family credit
into them yet we keep trying to do a
one-size-fits-all model it can’t work
because each of these segments has its
own particular characteristics different
players with different opportunities for
them to do different things in that
segment today we have a hundred and
eighty six million people who hold who
are registered as mobile phone
subscribers but in terms of unique
mobile phone subscribers that speak
because that’s accounting for
multi-screen we have about eighty six on
the PV and salad we have seventy five
million people who own accounts or
seventy four million accounts rather
unique once again unique identities on
the bbm base thirty four million a lot
of the services were offering and
talking about relate largely to those
who are operating with Vivien numbers
now billions the fantastic tool it has
done wonders it has been it has found a
niche place where we have failed to deal
with identity in Nigeria but thirty four
million people out of a supposed
population of 200 are we to abandon the
rest mobile today gives you access to
another over forty odd by the way that
forty oh that’s the population
of Canada assuming we don’t all go there
soon that mobile is a route to get to
them a mobile is only a route to those
40 we still have to find a route to the
extra we have to offer them services we
have to find a way to bring them on
board and create activity for them today
in the segments that we play with on ni
p which is instant payment which is when
you when you go online and decide to pay
somebody to a an app or your bank only
11.5 million of the 34 million people
are actually active on that platform
that’s 11.5 out of 34 and I’m still not
talking of the balance of the 14 not to
talk of the balance that exists but that
works well for that 11.5 million and
that’s a service that is provided well
so app developers they’ve developed
brilliant apps now that work for banks
and for those who use it it is fantastic
I’m sure majority of yet don’t write
checks anymore there is no collaboration
that’s going on between telcos and banks
to deal with ussd ussd allows those who
are who don’t use smart phones who use
what we call future phones we like to G
phones to actually do mobile money
transactions we haven’t got the
penetration that we want yet because if
we did the band of people utilizing it
would grow it’s a market that is there
to be attacked and dealt with a market
that’s there to be served it’s separate
segments god filter companies today who
do wonderfully well with data there’s a
big ecommerce giant today who basically
takes data that it obtains from when it
sells you a product when you receive the
product when you how you pay for the
product and what you do whether you
return the product or not and whatever
other orders you do to find a way to
give you a solution there are companies
today in that space who else
do loans using data algorithms to work
on whether it’s customer data that is
obtained from some level of financial
transactions or data that is obtained
from your banking records that
collaboration that’s working but they
still a lot more that we can do we have
pushed mobile money for quite a while in
Nigeria and it hasn’t worked well why
one of the big things we’ve got to deal
with this trust big issue mobile
companies today we offer value-added
services and I am sure if I asked
majority of you will complain about
double billing that has occurred at some
point in time on those services so if
you see that how do you trust me to hold
your money that’s an issue that has to
be addressed
you’ve got literacy and I’m talking here
specifically financial literacy of more
importantly use case for the man who is
serving goods and services on the street
and is collecting money then same reason
he’s not putting it in the back we
haven’t been able to go and sit down to
convince him of what is in it for him if
he puts that money in the bank we’re too
busy fighting over who gets what
transaction fee when that is really
where our rule is convincing get him to
know the value of future credit of
insurance for his goods there’s the big
gorilla in the room that we have not
dealt with as a country national
identity it’s ridiculous up to this
point we do not have a national identity
scheme that we still have Vivian as a
default with 34 million people that when
you quote Nigeria’s population you use
United Nations or whu-oh as your bait
how we’ve got the regulatory environment
we have to take initiatives and allow
people to innovate but we manage it on
the regulatory environment from a
technology footprint
you will always be behind the curve
because technology goes ahead of
regulation that’s just the nature of the
beast then we’ve got the gold mine we
sit on that we utilize polling data it’s
incredible the amount of data we have as
a country it’s also incredible how we
make decisions based on perceptions and
myths when the data is dead that we can
use the segments I’ve just spoken about
and just pure data please just
understanding analyzing the data that
you’ve got allows you to understand your
market better we’ve got with on
extremely data and we’re sitting down
and watching over the top services which
are big external bodies coming in and
acquiring their own data and we wait for
them to come and use that data to deal
with us in this part of the world I’ll
just go through a speed snapshot of some
of the data we hold this is vivianne
distribution against mobile distribution
it shows you for instance that 20% of
all Vivienne boulders reside in Lagos
State the figure for mobile subscription
is 14% and that those processes the
point where I said mobile mobile is more
distributed by the nature of the beast
there is something this doesn’t show
that is interesting in most states it’s
in the others it has two percent Vivien
population in emo state yet if you did
state of origin as they check it most
states it’s with six percent of billion
all that why are they so much more
interested in financial services and why
are they that mobile if you can answer
some of those questions you can find
nigeria has widely known and accepted
that it has a huge infrastructure
deficit it’s not going to be fixed
quickly in kind of cash that is required
but there is something we can do I know
people talk about leapfrogging
that might not be it what technology
allows us to at least improve the
quality of life of the citizens a small
improvement here makes a huge difference
to the lives of those individuals
technology exists today mobile networks
by the nature of their business rollout
services to rural areas and places where
a lot of other people don’t go those
mobile networks are not optimum the
quality of service we could do a lot
more with that
that’s regulatory but that platform
exists why do we don’t want to spend
half the time thinking or finding other
ways to reach the same people that a
road already reaches there’s a highway
somebody’s built the highway they can
build it better they can continue to
build it we can make the highway an open
platform they get good returns for what
they’ve done in return people offer
services on that platform there’s no
road in the world that doesn’t have
petrol stations where you can buy petrol
book our joints hotels these are all
services services that are built by
innovators that sit here services that
don’t need to go and find ways to and
build a highway of their own we already
have a huge infrastructure deficit we
want to start compounding that I think
there exists an opportunity for us to
fix Nigeria well the Chinese have done
remarkably well in this space I said we
sit down and we are watching other
people come in and take the market from
us let’s create the right regulatory
environment let’s collaborate I showed
you examples collaboration works well
let’s attack the various markets that
really are in our own compounds let’s
focus let’s use the data with God let’s
therefore be able to create innovative
services that will make a difference to
our people thank you [Applause]
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