Access via sign-up on the event app or by invitation only. English-French-Portuguese translation available.
Half of fintechs feel regulation “acts as a constraint rather than a catalyst”, a Central Bank of Nigeria survey found this year as it plans to overhaul its engagement approach. Absent policy co-creation platforms, scarce fintech-central bank dialogue and sparse regulatory guidance top concerns. As do slow approvals and policy blind spots, primarily in cross-border payments and stablecoins, are also among the main concerns. Fintechs feel they are not engaged as seriously on the same basis as banks despite Africa hosting the fastest fintech market globally, projected to reach set to hit $65bn by 2030. Most central banks want to collaborate and champion fintech progress, but a flood of new digital actors, some with gaps in KYC, fraud prevention and AML controls – partly explains their guarded stance. The roundtable brings together central banks and fintechs to reverse/bridge the innovator-rulemaker disconnect.
Key points:
- Policy co-creation: Building an open-door policy, an online central bank engagement hub and a regulator-endorsed body to aggregate fintech perspectives
- How can licensing gateways, sandboxes, shared compliance tools and “Suptech” shorten fintechs’ time-to-market while reinforcing consumer safeguards?
- Which regulatory ambiguities and blind spots should be priorities for future fintech-central bank engagements?