FinTech Association of Nigeria, known as FintechNGR, has said digitisation is now the minimum requirement for business relevance in Nigeria.

It, therefore, urged Nigerian business leaders to make digital transformation a boardroom priority to build future-ready enterprises.

Its President, Dr Stanley Jacob, made the call at the maiden edition of the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) Business Innovation Series on Thursday in Lagos.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that FintechNGR is a Nigeria-based non-partisan organisation focused on creating an enabling financial technological environment for innovation in Nigeria.

Jacob is also the Group Chief Innovation and Technology Officer at Meristem, a Nigerian company that provides various services in the capital market.

He noted that the divide between digitally native companies and legacy businesses had become a survival gap, rather than merely a technology divide.

He said organisations that failed to embed digital transformation into their core business strategy risked losing competitiveness in an increasingly technology-driven economy.

“With more than 200 million people, about half of them under the age of 30, and approximately 3.5 million young Nigerians entering the workforce annually, digitisation is the minimum requirement for relevance,” he said.

Jacob said the growing digital relationship between Nigeria and the United Kingdom (UK) was creating significant opportunities for businesses.

According to him, UK-Nigeria bilateral trade has reached about £8.1 billion annually, with digital and technology services becoming an increasingly important driver of growth.

He noted that Nigerian fintech firms, including LemFi, Moniepoint and Kuda Bank, were expanding their operations in the UK, while British fintech company, Wise, had secured its first Nigerian licence.

The FintechNGR boss also cited the UK Export Finance commitment of £746 million to modernise Apapa and Tin Can ports as well as Airtel Africa’s 80-million-dollar Lagos data centre.

According to him, these are key investments strengthening Nigeria’s digital infrastructure.

Jacob identified regulatory clarity, infrastructure investment and talent development as the three critical pillars for sustaining the country’s digital ecosystem.

He said initiatives such as the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Open Banking framework, Federal Government’s Three Million Technical Talent programme and partnerships between Nigerian and UK institutions were strengthening digital capacity.

The fintech expert urged business leaders to ensure their digital strategies were reviewed regularly, adequately funded and driven from the boardroom.

He also advised organisations to independently assess their customer experience, data governance and cybersecurity readiness, while forging strategic partnerships to accelerate innovation.

‘’Future-ready enterprises are those that leverage data for decision-making, build digital platforms, rather than isolated products.

‘’Those enterprises also prioritise cybersecurity as a board-level responsibility and embrace strategic collaborations, ‘’ the FintechNGR boss said.

Jacob warned that between 70 per cent and 80 per cent of digital transformation initiatives failed because they were treated as information technology projects, instead of enterprise-wide business transformation programmes.

He also identified digital skills shortages and weak governance structures as major barriers to successful digital adoption, particularly among African businesses.

Jacob said businesses that combined technology with strong leadership, governance and skilled talent would be better positioned to harness opportunities emerging from the growing UK-Nigeria digital ecosystem.

Also, the President, NBCC, Mr Abimbola Olashore, represented by the Chamber’s Vice-President, Mr Akin Osuntoki, described technology as a strategic driver of growth, competitiveness and long-term sustainability.

Olashore said businesses across industries were rethinking how they operated and created value through digital transformation, innovation and data-driven solutions.

He said the NBCC business innovation series was conceived as a platform to bring together business leaders, innovators, investors and other stakeholders.

Those, he said, were to promote collaboration and practical solutions capable of transforming industries.

According to him, innovation has become a strategic imperative for every organisation seeking to remain relevant and competitive.

On his part, Chairman, NBCC Programmes Committee, Mr Tajudeen Ahmed, said digital transformation extended beyond technology to include visionary leadership, innovation and the willingness to rethink business models.

Ahmed said businesses that embraced digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, automation, digital payments and data analytics, would be better positioned to scale operations, improve efficiency and unlock new opportunities.

He described the business innovation series as a new platform established by the chamber to equip businesses with the knowledge, strategies and partnerships required to thrive in a digital economy.

A Chief Operating Officer at Risevest, a digital platform, Mr Awa Ekekwe, said businesses could no longer afford to delay their digital transformation journeys because the future was already here.

Ekekwe noted that, while technology enhanced business scalability, people, sound processes and effective governance remained the foundation that sustainable enterprises must leverage technology on.

According to him, while AI and other digital tools are becoming increasingly important, they are only as effective as the people deploying them and the quality of governance supporting their use.

“The muscle of businesses in this time and age are still the people while your processes and governance structures are the foundation which you then leverage technology on,” he said.