‘London-Lagos Collaboration Will Promote Cross-border Payments Despite Country’s Specific Regulations’

Emma Okonji

The recent London trade mission to Nigeria, put together by London & Partners, London’s growth agency, designed to strengthen London’s economic, cultural and innovative ties with Lagos, has promised to promote cross-border payments between Nigerian companies and the United Kingdom (UK) companies, irrespective of country’s specific regulations.

Cross-border payment transaction has been a herculean task for businesses in Nigeria to make seamless payments as a result of country specific regulations, among other obstacles, but the recent London trade mission to Nigeria, led by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, promised to address some of the barriers to cross-border payments, with a strong promise to partner Nigerian businesses in order to boost business growth and expansion, including job creation.

Deputy Mayor of London for Business and Growth, Howard Dawber, who was part of the delegation of the London trade mission to Nigeria this week, said: “The trade mission is a huge opportunity to promote cross ecosystem innovation, trade and investment between Lagos and London. We are here to support London-based companies looking to expand into the Nigerian markets.”

Addressing the issue of cross-border payments, the Deputy Mayor of London said: “Obviously, every challenge is an opportunity, particularly when you talk about cross-border challenge affecting tech startups in Nigeria. We are aware that Africa faces some challenges in relation to trade, such as cross-border transactions, infrastructure and internal connections, which include physical connections.
“I know there’s some country specific regulatory hurdles that need to get sorted out, because they are holding people and businesses back. And there’s a massive opportunity for everyone, if such challenges are addressed. The cross-border payment issue within Africa,as itrelates to UK, is something we can work on with the UK government, to ease payment transaction between Nigeria and UK, and therefore Lagos and London.”

According to him, the UK regulators maybe overzealously implementing an international system, he however said there must be a better way to do that, insisting that making it as easy as possible for people to set up businesses in London and do the cross-border transactions, will open lots of opportunities for Nigerian businesses and the economies of both countries.

“We’re very good at rules in London. We like rules, and we stick to them. And that’s great in terms of dependability, but sometimes, when there’s a global rule, we stick to it a little bit more firmly than everybody else,” Dawber OBE further said.

Speaking at a panel session during the London trade mission to Lagos, the Company Director for Nigeria at Verto, a global cross-border payment company, Mr. Austin Okpagu, explained how the companycould power cross-border payments, not just in emerging markets like Nigeria, but also globally.
According to him, Veto works with multiple companies and in the emerging markets where payments are fragmented. “Our system supports up to 50 different currencies and enables businesses to pay out to over 170 countries globally. We also provide local railways across the emerging market where businesses can integrate and also use our infrastructure to build payments as well,” Okpagu said during the panel session.

Speaking about borderless business in practice and the challenges for customers, the VP of Global Expansion and Payment Partnership at Flutterwave, Mayokun Owolabi, who also featured at the panel session, said Flutterwave could boast of being one of the most licensed non-bank entity in Africa that is highly compliant to country specific regulations when it comes to cross-border payments.

According to her, “While trying to expand and be borderless and make sure that everybody is able to be paid seamlessly, we want to do that in a compliant manner. And since inception, our mission hasn’t changed. We want to simplify payments for endless possibilities. We want Africa to be able to pay the world, and the world to be able to pay Africa. For us, borderless is not just about the payments, it’s beyond the payments, and it’s beyond the funds. It’s about the problems that we’re solving.”

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who led the London trade mission to Lagos, left Nigeria this week with his team of 26 high-growth enterprise, sustainability and fintech companies, and headed with the team to Accra in Ghana and to Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa, to continue building connections within the African region and to boost trade links with London.