Chinwe Uzoho is a Business Leader and Digital Payment Strategist. She has amassed over three decades of experience spanning retail banking, fintech Product innovation and is regarded as one of the most inspiring people in the financial services industry right now.
In her current role at Network International Payment Services, she has established frameworks for stakeholder engagement and business turnaround across West and Central Africa, thereby helping to drive revenue growth and value delivery by securing global market opportunities. Chinwe is also an executive member of the Global Council of Women in retail banking, fintech and financial services and a firm advocate of women in technology.
Nairametrics recently caught up with Chinwe to hear all about her career journey and to share insights about the state of financial inclusion in Nigeria and how the mobile money sector is changing the financial services landscape in Africa.
What factors have been responsible for your success in the financial services industry?
For me, success is a journey, and it is never final. It is only the starting point! Success is not by chance, or by taking the easiest way out. Success is not giving up on my dreams and aspirations, it is going far and beyond my fears and failures.
I started very early in the financial sector right from my NYSC primary assignment was with a commercial bank and which I was retained as a permanent staff member. The most important time is that I have consciously worked on improving myself academically and professionally. I have an open mind towards learning and sharing knowledge with my colleagues. In addition, I believe it is crucial to have a mentor that can guide you through the right part in your career. I have two mentors (I call them my connectors), I always consult them and over time they have guided me to develop strong leadership skills, gain new insight and set some boundaries required for progress, as well as helped me stimulate my personal and professional growth for success.
How can partnerships between service providers and financial institutions support market growth?
The importance of Partnership and collaboration in business cannot be overemphasized, over the last two decades we have seen a lot of partnerships across various businesses, some of them have lasted while some never worked. We are living in complex societies where the policy frameworks in place often seem to fall short of providing satisfying solutions to a growing number of problems in the financial space.
Partnerships between service providers and financial institutions can go a long way in building a strong and stable financial system by providing robust product and services to address the needs of the community. Operational / Technology cost is a major concern to most businesses; with the service providers partnering with the financial service industry, they can minimize some of these costs through shared services, operation expenses and some of their capital expense as well. Partnership and collaboration breeds efficiency in the business, which is the engine of a sustainable business. They will achieve their goals faster and more effectively by focusing on specific efforts and will share in the expertise/ competency that exists in both businesses to create better efficiency.
Partnership is good strategy for economic and market growth, it offers growth for new product development and expansion into new geographies. It promotes economic growth through capital accumulation and technological progress by increasing the savings rate, mobilizing and pooling savings, producing information about investment, facilitating and encouraging the inflows of foreign capital, as well as optimizing the allocation of capital. In addition, the Partnership of services providers and financial institutions helps to increase the trust the consumers have in the market, improve brand visibility and equally reassure stakeholders of their returns on investment.
For service providers who are keen on these partnerships, what are the necessary steps required to do so?
It is important to note that not all partnerships work, irrespective of how both partners prepare or contribute. The steps required for every partnership depend on the type and reasons for the partnership. However, for the purpose of this discussion, I will generalize on the basic steps required in a partnership.
The first step is to understand the need for the partnership, this will be the springboard to make the right connection and be able to establish the areas of interest/ value add/ Tech and operational alignment, that is required to forester a healthy partnership. Also detailing the scope of the partnership with respect to equity/ capital and legal obligations is very crucial in taking the bold step into a partnership. It might pay to get a good lawyer to interpret and understand the terms of reference before going into a partnership. Doing a due diligence is very important, to protect both the employees/ investors/ clients and other stakeholders. Before a partnership is consummated it is necessary to take stock of the resources/ capital and commitments required for the partnership to thrive so that a sustainable business can be built to last.
How can African businesses navigate the challenges that come with sending and receiving payments across borders?
African nations are very crucial as they form a massive and ever-growing slice of the world’s remittance market, ability to make transfers across borders is very crucial to business and economic growth in Africa. There are many challenges as well as opportunities associated with remittance across Africa countries. We have also seen a lot of collaboration amongst Fintech/money transfer operators across the African borders in a bit to forester remittances across the countries. In addition, the authorities and policymakers are also looking into ways where there can be seamless flow and handshake across the African countries to encourage trade and remittances across borders.
Though a lot of work has gone into making this possible, like the AfCFTA plan to introduce the new interconnected Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) to facilitate cross-border payments, boost intra-African trade and provide expansion opportunities for businesses. However, there are still a lot of challenges that businesses face in trying to remit payments across borders. The cost of making this remittance is enormous, with high transfer charges that the business owner will have to absorb. The unstructured transfer flow makes it prone to a lot of risks amongst different middlemen/ agents in the chain of the transaction. This increases the risk and delays in receiving the funds. Cross-border payments obviously involve at least two jurisdictions and regulatory policies of different countries, which prohibits the ease of moving funds. Adding to this complexity is the fact that every country abides by its own regulations/ conversion rates, therefore making the cross-border payment system very cumbersome and unattractive to businesses. Finally, the issue of transparency and security of funds transferred is a major setback for business owners. They are not confident about how secure the platform is, and, in both cases, there is a lack of transparency/ trust between both parties to conclude the transaction.
What are the pathways to success for women seeking to enter the digital payment sector?
Digital technologies are great potential to act as development enablers for women, as they bring new social, political, and economic opportunities. Women face higher barriers when it comes to initial access, affordability of digital tools and use of ICT. Technology is shaping the world we live in, and women are currently under-represented in the tech workforce. The good part is that all these are changing, and more women are rising to the challenge to be in the fore front of digital payment sector.
There is no clearly defined roadmap that every woman must go through to be in technology. The first thing we must do is to remove cultural stereotype that technology is only for men. Women should be allowed to explore the world of technology early enough (from tertiary education and enrolling in STEM subjects), this will enable them to develop the self-confidence required to pursue tech later in life. As a woman aspiring to grow in the digital world, it is important to be intentional and extract more value from their use of digital tools and early familiarization of digital platform. Learning from experience and on the job training is an excellent way to create a career path for any woman that wants to progress in the digital payment space. Also, knowledge is power, women can get to top echelon of their career in the tech world by taking up trainings/ courses/ certification etc. to improve their knowledge and give them the strength to compete favorable, as well as advance in their career.