The Managing Director of Payment Processing and Switching at Interswitch, Akeem Lawal, has called Africa’s rigid border system a major hindrance to the growth of digital technology and businesses on the continent.
Speaking at Interswitch Techconnect 4.0 in Lagos on Thursday, Lawal noted that the absence of a unified currency and the challenges of cross-border movement are significant barriers to business growth, particularly within the digital ecosystem.
He said, “Today if you want to do business across Africa, it is difficult. You have to deal with currency issues, deal with payment system infrastructure and lack of digital literacy.
“What Interswitch believes is that, with technology, a lot of those problems would be solved within the next two or three years.”
He stressed further that the issue of fraud has also been a major challenge in the technology ecosystem across the globe.
According to Lawal, Interswitch has addressed the issue of fraud by focusing on education, identifying high-risk customers, and adopting advanced technology.
“Fraud is a global challenge and it is not peculiar to Nigeria alone and in Nigeria, we have been able to tackle the issue of fraud through some main pillars. The first one is education. A lot of what we do in the Techconnect series is to educate our customers on how they can protect themselves and their customers against fraud.
“The second element is in the customer onboarding. You need to be able to identify risky customers and avoid bringing them into your system which is one of the reasons the Central Bank of Nigeria insisted on KYC compliance. So we are helping our customers to not only understand the compliance requirements but also to provide them with onboarding solutions,” he added.
Lawal noted that adopting technology capable of detecting and addressing various fraud issues would help minimize the challenges fraud poses within the digital ecosystem.
He further said that the Interswitch Techconnect series has continually leveraged feedback mechanisms to optimize the organization’s operations and provide improved, more efficient services to its customers.
