Business
FINTECH 5.0: Evaluating How FirstBank Strengthens Collaboration
…To drive financial inclusion
It was Sir Isaac Newton, in his letter to Robert Hooke in 1675, who wrote the now-famous quote: “If I have seen further (than others), it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
The shoulders of giants Sir Newton referred to has to do with leverage provided by the discoveries and experiences of people who have gone before or walked that same path earlier, that pave the way for and enable other people and a new generation to take things to a totally new dimension.
The truth is, giants whose shoulders provide such leverage to the next generation can be found in various fields and various nations. In Nigeria, for example, such giants exist in various fields and they are known and recognised.
Take the fintech (financial technology) space in Nigeria, where one bank is known to have stood as a giant with very broad shoulders, having capacities that have been built up and accumulated over 127 continuous years. Every year since 2016 (apart from 2017 when it was implementing ideas from 2016, including a Digital Innovation Lab), this well-recognised bank has provided a platform for the most robust engagement of the fintech industry in Nigeria. Tagged Fintech Summit, the annual engagement has continued to help in catalysing the fintech sector to ever-higher levels from year to year.
Held in Lagos the commercial capital of Nigeria and arguably the fintech capital of Africa, given Nigeria’s status as the leading nation in the fintech space in Africa, the annual FirstBank Fintech Summit has attracted an average of a thousand participants, who are mostly fintech owners, workers and enthusiasts, yearly. Last year’s Summit, Fintech Summit 4.0 with the theme
“How Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence will Disrupt Fintech in Nigeria”, however, drew an unprecedented number of participants – over 6,000 from across 52 different countries. It was the first virtual Summit due to the restrictions imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and it featured as keynote speaker Silicon Valley-based innovator of international repute, Chinedu Echeruo, who founded HopStop that was later sold to Apple for US$1 billion. Imagine the inspiration, dreams and aspirations young people soak up while listening to speakers with such a profile.
Far from being one-directional – with all the talk flowing from only the speaker to the audience – the yearly Summit is actually a platform for multidimensional engagement involving various stakeholders in the fintech industry – operators, regulators, investors, enthusiasts, fintech journalists and writers, bankers, et cetera.
It offers an unequalled opportunity for networking among fintech and other stakeholders, leading to opportunities for collaboration within the community. For small businesses and start-ups powered by FirstBank’s support, the annual Summit has been a veritable platform for showcasing them. The platform has also served for the announcement of policy initiatives coupled with pronouncements that provide clarifications to policy. This is due to invitations extended to regulators and the important role they are assigned in conversations facilitated during the Summit.
The Summit that preceded last year’s, i.e., the third edition of Fintech Summit 3.0 held in 2019, featured another heavyweight in Nigeria’s fintech industry, Victor Asemota, founder of Swifta Systems & Services, as keynote speaker. The theme “Banking + Tech = Solving Real Problems”, included panel sessions featuring experts with over two hundred combined years of experience in both the financial and technological industries.
They applied their knowledge, expertise and experience to address challenges in the technologically-driven business world, structured in terms of Solving Business Problems; Solving Regulatory, Security and Legal Problems; and Solving Lifestyle Problems. At the end of the Summit, participants must have felt that the Summit delivered on the confidence the Chief Executive Officer of FirstBank, Adesola Adeduntan, had expressed when he remarked in his welcome address, “I am optimistic that every organisation represented here will be empowered to provide services with greater speed and solve real societal problems to the advantage of the Nigerian populace through the insights that will be gained from this event.“
Fintech Summit 3.0 had built on the success of the second edition, Fintech Summit 2.0 held in 2018, which had “The Future of Banking – The Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data” as a theme. Adia Sowho, the Managing Director of Mines in Nigeria, had, as the first keynote speaker, stressed the importance of collaboration between legacy banks and fintechs in the overall good of their shared financial services space. The Deputy Managing Director of FirstBank, Gbenga Shobo, had, in his welcome address, said that FirstBank was committed to finding the right balance in its approach in supporting the budding fintech industry. It is gratifying that the bank has since found that right balance and pushed ahead enthusiastically with the continual annual engagement that is its yearly Fintech Summit.
For those who like to bring up the argument that deposit money banks (DMBs) and fintech are rivals competing in the same space for the same customers and wonder why FirstBank, a leading deposit money bank, would itself be involved in efforts to catalyse the fintech industry, they need to wake up and smell the coffee. FirstBank is continuously evolving and staying on the cutting edge of technology in order to better serve its customers, who are themselves evolving and adapting to newer and more efficient and convenient technologies as they become available.
And FirstBank is on a journey to a future where it is happy, in the spirit of the African tradition of Ubuntu, to take all fintech along with it. In the words of another famous quote, “The sky is too big for two [or many] big birds flying in it to collide.” FirstBank believes there is ample room for all players – deposit money banks, fintech, et cetera – to fulfil their unique roles. Therefore, collaboration, not competition, is FirstBank’s watchword. And FirstBank considers fintech partners in progress in its avowed commitment to driving financial inclusion.
FirstBank’s own evolution and the transition is causing some people to question its continuous classification by the Central Bank as a deposit money bank (with a preponderance of bricks-and-mortar banking operations) rather than a digital bank. And the reasons for their argument cannot be easily waved aside. In 2020, for example, over 85 per cent of the banking transactions that were required by customers of FirstBank were performed on the bank’s self-service channels.
That means customers of the bank only needed the attention of the bank’s staff or branches for just 15 per cent of all the banking transactions they required in 2020. There are now as many as over 16 million customers between FirstBank’s digital channels of online banking (called FirstOnline), mobile banking (christened FirstMobile) and USSD banking (called *894# quick banking).
Between FirstOnline and FirstMobile, a growth of 21 per cent in the user base was experienced in 2020. Customers on both platforms conducted approximately 256 million transactions worth N15.7 trillion in the same year. FirstOnline, as of June 2021, had an impressive 597,466 customers on the service, a 17 per cent growth on the previous year and 578,292 transactions per month, averaging a value of N388 billion per month.
For FirstMobile, besides the impressive gain in numbers, it gained recognition as “Best Mobile Banking App” at the Global Finance Best Digital Bank Awards, for providing excellent self-service through its user-friendly app. FirstMobile had, as of June 2021, 4,596,203 users on the platform, which is a nine per cent growth on the previous year and an average of 27,730,830 transactions every month. While these numbers point to the giant statue of the bank, none of it excites FirstBank as much as Firstmonie, because of its invaluable role in driving financial inclusion at the grassroots level, one of FirstBank’s overriding commitments.
Firstmonie, the agent banking network of FirstBank, currently has over 130,000 agents across the country, making it the largest bank-led agent network anywhere in Africa. As the foremost financial inclusion service in the country, it has achieved over 750 million transactions worth N15 trillion (about US$30 billion) processed from inception to date.
Over 295 million of those transactions with a total value of N6.65 trillion were processed in 2020 alone – the same year COVID-19 caused widespread disruptions across the globe. Firstmonie agency banking scheme has empowered agents across all Local Government Areas in the country, providing employment to thousands of people.
FirstBank through the Firstmonie platform further supports the fintech industry via partnership collaborations with local and international fintechs. All these are geared towards expanding financial inclusion and providing a variety of services to customers of the bank with giant shoulders that customers and fintechs can stand on to see further.
As for Sir Isaac Newton, the giant of a scientist whose famous quote began this piece, if he could read us from the grave, he would feel very proud today to see that celebrated line from his 1675 letter being aptly used to represent the relationship that exists between the broad, energetic and dynamic shoulders of Nigeria’s banking behemoth, FirstBank, and the rapidly emerging beautiful bride of Nigeria’s economic sectors, the fintech industry. This relationship climaxes every year in the annual Fintech Summit and the forthcoming Fintech Summit 5.0 promises to take the relationship to a whole new dimension.
Culled from BusinessDay
United Bank for Africa (UBA), Redtech, and MoMo PSB have launched a payment interoperability partnership that expands cardless payment access for consumers and merchants across Nigeria. Redtech is backed by Heirs Holdings; MoMo PSB is MTN Nigeria’s fintech subsidiary.
With this development, MoMo PSB customers can now make payments directly from their MoMo wallets at participating UBA merchant locations using the “Pay with MoMo” feature on RedPay POS terminals; they can also visit any UBA branch to make withdrawals and deposits from and into their MoMo accounts. For online shoppers, e-commerce merchants can now receive payments directly from MoMo PSB customers through Redtech’s payment gateway infrastructure.
The partnership brings together Redtech’s payment technology and enablement capabilities, UBA’s merchant-acquiring and distribution layer, and MoMo PSB’s mobile money wallet ecosystem and customer base. Redtech holds licences as a Payment Terminal Service Provider (PTSP) and Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP) from the Central Bank of Nigeria, authorising it to provide both POS and payment gateway services. Together, the three organisations are addressing a critical gap in Nigeria’s payments market – connecting banking-led merchant acceptance with telco-led mobile money wallets.
For MoMo PSB customers, Pay with MoMo increases the number of places where their wallets can be used for everyday payments. In the case of merchants, it opens access to a wider pool of customers and provides an additional payment option at the point of sale.
UBA’s Head, Digital Banking, Kayode Olubiyi, who spoke during the launch, noted that this partnership represents the solution to the gap identified in cash transactions and card access.
“What this partnership represents is an honest and effective answer to the gap we identified in cash transactions and card access. Our merchants are already serving millions of customers every day through the UBA network. By bringing Pay with MoMo into that network, we are giving those merchants a direct connection to MoMo PSB’s customer base – and giving MoMo PSB customers more places to use their wallets when they shop. That is a clear win for both sides.”
Redtech’s Chief Executive Officer, Emmanuel Ojo, emphasised that the partnership aims to make payments work better together in a way that is practical for everyday commerce.
“This partnership is about making payments work more seamlessly for everyday commerce and most importantly, It aligns with Africapitalism, as championed by the Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Tony Elumelu, CFR. By integrating our RedPay technology with MoMo PSB’s wallets through the UBA network, we will offer merchants and customers greater choice. Our goal is to build the payment infrastructure that ensures a merchant never has to turn away any customer in Nigeria or across Africa because of their preferred payment method. By connecting our technology with MoMo PSB’s wallets through the UBA network, we are giving merchants and customers more options”
Ag. CEO, MoMo PSB, Omolara Michael-Nwadu, who highlighted the barriers to payment in the country, emphasised the importance of partnerships, explaining how integrating MoMo wallets into UBA’s merchant network through Redtech’s infrastructure will unlock additional merchant touchpoints.
“This partnership marks a significant step toward true interoperability in Nigeria’s payments ecosystem. By integrating MoMo wallets into UBA’s merchant network through Redtech’s infrastructure, we are removing barriers between bank-led and mobile money systems while unlocking access to over 55,000 merchant touchpoints. Our focus is on driving usage at scale, enabling more transactions, deeper engagement, and greater value for merchants. At MoMo PSB, we are building a more connected financial ecosystem where payments aren’t tied to platforms but to a seamless customer experience. At MoMo PSB, our focus is on simplifying payments, expanding access to financial services and helping more Nigerians do more every day. Pay with MoMo gives our customers more places to use their wallets, while supporting broader financial inclusion by bringing useful financial services closer to where people live, work and do business.”
UBA’s Group Head, Brands, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Alero Ladipo, captured the broader significance of the moment at the signing ceremony. “Every institution in this room is a giant in its own right. What makes today meaningful is the decision to come together anyway,” she said. Ladipo added, “Financial inclusion is not a slogan to us at UBA. It is a commitment that requires scale, technology, and the willingness to build ecosystems rather than silos. This partnership is that commitment made concrete.”
Pay with MoMo is being introduced through RedPay POS terminals already deployed within UBA’s merchant network. More than 55,000 RedPay POS terminals have been deployed across the network, with the platform having processed over ₦278.47 billion in transaction value and more than 12.23 million transactions to date.
Starting in Nigeria, Pay with MoMo is now live at participating UBA merchant locations, with plans to extend the rollout to selected African markets where both MoMo PSB and UBA operate.
As part of efforts to promote SMEs and strengthen support for operators in the informal sector, Unity Bank has continued to empower small-scale traders and shop owners across Nigeria through its initiative called Shop Collateralised Facility, SHOCOF.
SHOCOF is an innovative loan product, and Unity Bank has disbursed over N500 million to beneficiaries, significantly improving access to financing, and further driving financial inclusion.
Originally introduced as a targeted intervention for traders in Southeast Nigeria, SHOCOF quickly gained traction and broad acceptance for its flexibility and tailored structure, prompting the Bank to expand the product nationwide.
Under the initiative, eligible customers can use their shops as collateral to access financing. The product simplifies access to credit by leveraging the commercial value and stability associated with fixed business locations, enabling traders to secure funds without the stringent collateral requirements associated with traditional lending structures.
The facility provides working capital support that enables beneficiaries to restock goods, increase inventory turnover, improve cash flow, and respond more effectively to market demand.
Recent reports indicate that more than 80 per cent of Nigeria’s small businesses operate informally, with many relying on personal savings and informal borrowing channels due to limited access to Bank credit. SHOCOF was developed to bridge this gap through a lending model tailored to the realities of market traders and small shop owners.
Speaking on the impact of the product, the Group Head, Risk Management, Unity Bank, Olusegun Oladipo, said the Bank recognised the need for financing solutions aligned with the realities of informal sector businesses.
“SHOCOF was created to address a critical gap within the small business ecosystem by providing access to credit through a structure that traders can satisfactorily meet without much ado,” Oladipo said.
He added: “By recognising the value and stability embedded in their businesses, we have been able to support traders with the capital required to sustain and grow their operations.”
Also commenting, Divisional Head, SME & Retail Banking, Unity Bank, Adenike Abimbola, said the nationwide adoption of the product reflects proper market segmentation to meet the growing demand for accessible financing among small business owners.
“What started as a targeted intervention in the Southeast, which quickly gained momentum because the product directly addressed the realities of everyday traders,” Abimbola said.
Over the years, Unity Bank has continued to introduce targeted solutions aimed at empowering entrepreneurs, including its flagship Yanga account package developed to support female entrepreneurs.
The Bank reaffirmed that expanding access to capital for underserved business segments remains critical to boosting trade, strengthening local economies, and driving sustainable economic growth.
Access Holdings Plc has reaffirmed its commitment to longterm shareholder value and sustainable returns, following a strong performance in the 2025 financial year, while providing clarity on the rationale for the nonpayment of dividends for the year ended December 31, 2025.
The clarification was provided during the Group’s Full Year 2025 Investors and Earnings Call, where management addressed shareholder concerns regarding the absence of a dividend declaration despite the Group’s robust earnings growth and balancesheet expansion.
Access Holdings emphasised that the non-payment of dividend for the 2025 financial year was not performance driven, but reflected prudential regulatory alignment matters which required resolution before dividend payments could be effected.
Commenting on the matter, Innocent C. Ike, Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Access Holdings Plc, said: “Access Holdings has a strong history of consistent dividend payments, and rewarding shareholders remains a core priority for the Board and Management. The nonpayment of dividend for 2025 was not due to earnings weakness or cash flow constraints, but an alignment with regulatory and prudential guidelines.”
For the 2025 financial year, Access Holdings delivered a resilient and diversified performance, underscoring its capacity to generate sustainable shareholder returns. Gross earnings grew by 13.3 percent to ₦5.53 trillion, supported by strong growth in net interest income and a 40.9 percent increase in fees and commissions to ₦585.07 billion. Profit before tax increased by 16.2 percent to ₦1.01 trillion, crossing the ₦1 trillion mark for the first time in the Group’s history.
Total assets expanded by 24.2 percent to ₦51.56 trillion, reflecting scale accretion and the successful integration of recently acquired subsidiaries. The Group’s costtoincome ratio improved significantly from 56.7 percent to 51.7 percent, driven by disciplined cost management and operating leverage. Capital adequacy remained strong at 18.2 percent at the holding company level, while the banking subsidiary ended the year with a capital adequacy ratio of 20.2 percent.
“Our performance in 2025 demonstrates the strength of the franchise and its capacity to generate value for shareholders. Our focus is to ensure that shareholder distributions resume on a sustainable basis once all regulatory conditions are satisfied and the required approvals are obtained,” Ike added.
Access Holdings explained that while dividends were recommended at both halfyear and fullyear in 2025, regulatory approvals were not obtained. At the halfyear stage, the constraint related to Section 7.1 of the CBN Guidelines for Financial Holding Companies, which has since been fully resolved following the successful completion of an approved private placement.
At fullyear, an additional matter arose under Section 19(8)(c) of BOFIA, which places limits on investments in foreign banking subsidiaries relative to shareholders’ funds. The Group has been granted a twelvemonth window to fully remediate this position. The Group noted it will partially divest from some banking subsidiaries but will still retain its super majority shareholding.
According to Ike, maintaining the confidence of our regulators, depositors and stakeholders is fundamental to our operating philosophy. In line with our long-standing culture of prudence and sound governance, the Board remains committed to balance sheet strength and capital resilience, as the basis for sustainable shareholder distributions.”
The Group reassured stakeholders that it remains committed to engaging constructively with all relevant stakeholders to address the matters raised and achieve alignment with applicable requirements within the stipulated timeline. As discussions progress, the Group will continue to provide timely disclosures and transparent updates to the market and investors.
Access Holdings Plc is also strengthening its capital and liquidity buffers to support the sustainable resumption of dividend payments, subject to the fulfillment of the required conditions and approvals.
Reaffirming management’s confidence, Ike stated: “We remain actively engaged with the investment community and focused on resolving the matters raised within the prescribed timeline. Our priority remains delivering sustainable long-term value to shareholders through stronger execution, improved financial performance and disciplined growth. Subject to the successful conclusion of this process and the necessary approvals, our objective is to restore dividend payments on a sustainable basis.”
Concluding, Ike said: “Access Holdings is uniquely positioned to leverage its scale, geographic diversification and strong franchise to deliver resilient earnings growth, stronger returns and enhanced long-term shareholder value.”
