Semiu Olugbokiki: PayStack and Flutterwave are Just the Beginning of Nigeria’s Tech Revolution

With just over six years of experience working in the Financial Technology (Fintech) space, Semiu Olugokiki has developed a repertoire of projects that will turn the heads of tech veterans. He started out his career after completing his BSc from the University of Greenwich in Vietnam by working as a Backend developer at Telnet, a group of companies with subsidiaries in payments, health technology, research and development, and so on. Since leaving Telnet, he has gone on to work on several projects with governments and companies in the US and Canada.

In this interview, Semiu share insights in the tech revolution in Nigeria with particular emphasis on Fintech companies, infrastructure, regulations, and many more. Excerpts

As a developer working on these tech projects, you might have a bias but what is your honest assessment of the tech ecosystem in Nigeria?
We are a relatively young ecosystem compared to our international counterparts. Yet, we have made massive strides in such a short space of time. I remember the early days when everything noteworthy in Nigerian tech happened out of Yaba. Every FAANG leader that has visited Nigeria had to make a stop there, Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar, everybody! Now, our ecosystem has become so decentralized that the biggest companies are scattered all over the country, Lagos still being the epicenter. We have Paystack in Ikeja, Safeboda in Ibadan, uLesson in Abuja. We have come a long way in building these companies and tech hubs and we have barely even started.

You sound excited…
Of course! We are on the cusp of doing something unprecedented with technology. A few decades ago in Nigeria, in order to be successful to do something transformational, you had to have the backing of government officials. It’s so liberating to have the opportunity to do great things without the shackles and needless bureaucracy of seeking approvals.

But you need licenses to run a Fintech company
Correct! This is different though. The licenses required to operate a fintech company and the processes involved have become so easy. All you need these days is a licensed partner that shares your vision, a few APIs, and registration with the CAC, and voila you’re ready to fly.

Interesting. Where do you see Nigerian Fintech in the next 10 years?
Ten years is a long time away. In the last five years, we have seen several companies attain unicorn status one of which is OPay, a company I worked with to build out the core payment infrastructure. We also have Andela, Flutterwave, Interswitch, and the big e-commerce company, Jumia. Out of these five, three offer financial services. My list doesn’t even include Paystack that was acquired for 200 million dollars last year. All of these happened in the last five years.

In the next five years, you can expect even larger funding, bigger exits, and definitely more Nigerian unicorns. We’ve been talking about payments; Fintech also includes savings and investment apps, cryptocurrencies, and so on. Although there’s been quite some pushback regarding licenses and regulations for these, I’m certain that the government will get on board and ease the processes. You can only delay growth or progress; you really can’t stop it.

What can the government do to facilitate the growth of Fintech?
I would say the first thing they can do is just not be an obstruction to growth. Allow and encourage innovation within these spaces then play the big brother role, monitoring and providing checks and balances in the ecosystem.

Honestly speaking, the government agency, NIBSS has done great work in easing the rate of processing payments. Their solution is much better than most you’ll find outside the country and I’m speaking as a backend developer that’s always working with their infrastructure. This is just one way to go.

We need more of these infrastructures and we need more regulations that support our growth; not regulations like the ban on cryptocurrencies. Although oversight is needed, there are better ways to ensure the ethical use of cryptocurrency. We also need the government to help in building or granting licenses to companies with the capability to build structures such as 5G, extending internet access to underserved areas, and so on.

Any last words…

The Nigerian tech ecosystem is seeing massive growth and it’s down to a combination of factors such as the quality of the talent base, thriving relationship between founders, and a growing pipeline of venture capitalists and investors.

The exit by Paystack and Flutterwave are only just the beginning and serve as a beacon of hope for Fintech and the wider tech ecosystem. Founders should keep building, talent should keep upskilling. We are getting to a point where we will have a pool of products and services that will compete in the global market. We are just a few more years away.