Fintech Sales Strategies for Nigeria: Cracking the Code to Customer Adoption

Hello and welcome to the show. Today we're going to look at the challenges of selling your fintech ideas, your fintech app, your fintech website, whatever it is in Nigeria now. Why am I considering this topic now? Because fintechs are popular. They are the flavour of the day. Everybody seems to be starting a fintech right now as of the date of this recording in 2024 because we are inundated all the time. You know, you hear on on the blogs, on LinkedIn, you know so and so they raised, you know 2,000,010 million, this $1,000,000 and seems like a fancy idea.

So I don't know if it's the greed or rather not greed, what's the word? Opportunism. So I don't know if it's opportunism like the time has come, so everybody's going to throw their hat in the ring. But regardless of whatever it is that is making lots of fintechs spring up, I figured I might as well address that on the podcast from a sales and business development perspective to give some guidance to people who want to throw their hats into the fray.

So that if any of you podcast listeners are thinking about starting a fintech, then this will be a valuable resource to you. Or rather, I hope this will be a valuable resource to you. And if you know people who are thinking of starting fintechs, share this with them. Should be a valuable resource. Especially since most people when they're thinking about starting starting a tech startup, they're usually thinking about, you know, pitch deck raising funds.

You know, all the sexy stuff and all the things about selling at the end of the day turns out to be an afterthought. Or maybe people are just freestyling. So dear listener of the podcast, if you are an intending founder or you know intending founders or you know people who have existing fintechs with sales challenges, then please share not just this episode but the next series of episodes with them. And hopefully there's going to be some juicy Nuggets here that they can use to help address the challenges that they're having selling their fintech ideas in Nigeria.

So First off, like I like to do what is a fintech. I am just going to use an everyday, simple definition. So I'm not this definitions that you're going to hear on this podcast are not meant to be exhaustive. They're not meant to be academically correct. They're not meant to be on point. They're just meant to give whoever it is that is listening to this podcast, if you're an everyday guy or girl, average intelligence, just enough for you to understand what it is that is going on here.

So Fintech, the way I will define it is the business or an app or an website, sorry, a website or whatever bit of technology it is that the company or the people are using. But the key thing is they're going to be using a digital technology to improve the delivery of financial services. So if it's a mechanical tech looks like an ATM machine, then of course we're not going to call that a Fintech. But if it is digital tech like apps that Access Bank uses or something or or pay or other of those companies, then yes, we can call those fintechs.

So that's my own simple definition. The Fintech is it a business, is it the app itself, the website itself, the underlying technology that they're using, whatever, but it's digital tech and they are trying to improve how financial services are delivered in Nigeria. So in my own opinion, you meet these criteria then you can call yourself a Fintech and they are examples of Nigerian fintechs, just in case a couple of us are not clear.

So let's just start with the ones that are common that most of us already interface with on a day-to-day basis. So mobile payments, there are companies that do mobile payments. There's this company, PAGA, PAGA has been around for a very, very, very long time. I'm not sure how long I should have checked their website as research, but I know that they've been around for a very long time. People have been using them to pay for Napa to do transfers.

I think at some point. Is it like wire or jam payments or something? I know that PAGA was used to be huge for the payment space, online payment space, so people use them a lot. I've never used PAGA, but I have. I've had to use OP and that was back in. They started with, what's this guy's name, the last CBN governor, last Central Bank of Nigerian governor, Emilia. So under Emilia and Buhari there was this whole cashless policy thing.

They didn't want Nigerians to carry cash. You were limited to getting 20,000 at a time from ATMs 5000 per transaction, only one transaction per day though. We're trying to change the old currency to new 1000 notes and the the whole thing was just was just a mess, caused a lot of headaches. But trust Nigerians in our entrepreneurial spirit, there were lots of companies that rose up to fill in the void because back then, trying to make transactions through Nigerian regular banks was a nightmare.

You know, the infrastructure was not up to speed, payments, bouncing, hanging, you know, all sorts of things. So all sorts of companies were up on the scene. And that is where I first heard about Opie. And I've been using their services since then. In fact, when I go to the, when I go to the regular markets, you know, just like neighbourhood markets and the other vendors there, you know, I prefer to deal with the people who have Opie ATMs because.

So I know ATMs, all those things called POS. Yeah, POS machines. So I've tried to do with the people who have the OP POS machines because we haven't had any issues with them and stuff like that. So for mobile payments between PAGA, OP and the others in this family, there are lots of Nigerians, you know, who are like you and me who are still boots on the ground who have to interact with these people on a day-to-day basis.

So that's it. Those are example of fintechs that we interact with every day. OK, Well, maybe not every day for some of us every week because you know you have to go to the market at some point or maybe you have to buy fuel and it's an OP ATM. So that's them, that's Nigerian fintech. And then of course online banking because traditional banks also have their own payment platforms, their own apps, you know, things like that.

Those are also fintechs. Although nowadays when people say fintechs, you know they mean people in the start up space. So they're not talking about people who are allied with Zenith Bank or Axis Bank or any of these other banks, Nigerian banks over here. But still that is also a kind of fintech. Then there's also Robo advisors, you know Robo short for robot. So robot advisors. And these are basically just automated, how will I put it,

automated platforms, more or less automated investing, you know, robots, computer scripts, you know, things that are supposed to just either give you financial advice or help with portfolio management. OK, well, when we say portfolio, how do you define portfolio now? OK, let's just say, let's just pretend that our portfolio is just a briefcase of money and all the things that you have are valuable. So all your assets.

So let's just say, yeah, that portfolio is your assets. So how much do you have in the bank? How much do you have in shares? How much do you have in real estate? How much do you have in, you know, you get the point. Let's just pretend that if everything could be put in an actual portfolio, you know IE the suitcase. You know for those of us who are late 70s, early 80s kids, you know those briefcases that our fathers and well sometimes our mums used to carry around.

So if you could put everything into that, that's your portfolio. So we have there are some of these platforms that offer you know like trading platforms for instance that will put in an order automatically depending on market conditions or to help you balance your portfolio so that the ratio of cash to gold to stock to I want to say stock, I mean shares, company shares, you know stuff like that. So the whole idea behind Robot Advisors is that basically just set the program and you forget it and then the robot continues to monitor the performance of your portfolio and economic trends and just align things accordingly.

So that is also a kind of a fintech. I do not know any Nigerian fintechs that are robot advisors, but my wife is in securities regulations. And you know, when we just, you know, we hear about these sorts of things, that's people who are involved in the security space, some companies who are involved in security space and have robot advisors, whether proprietary or not. Then there's crowdfunding. That is when you use online tech and stuff like that to connect people or businesses to other people who are looking for finance or people are looking for a large pool of investors.

So in Nigeria there's fund all and I think I've heard of Thrive at Greek. I haven't done any research into them, but yeah, I'm sure you guys have heard of crowdfunding. Anyway. Then there's the the the newest kids on the block. That's a blockchain. Yeah, the blockchain boys and girls, those are the new ones. So blockchain, OK, blockchain, OK, I'll define this now. OK. When you hear blockchain technical terms, you think of distributed Ledger.

Now what this means Distributed, OK. When you hear distributed jobs think different people. That means not one person. Now when you hear Ledger think a store of record or a store of information. So the old school ledgers, you know, back when some of us were in secondary school, the old school ledgers, you know, before competing were popular in Nigeria. You know, you would actually have, let's say your father used to sell stuff like my father used to sell cement, don't actually have to be someone who would actually write down, you know, 5 bags of cement sold at so, so, so and so price.

And you know, all those things are books of records that the the, what do you call them, bookkeepers that the bookkeepers would look at to reconcile accounts. So those are ledgers. Well, those are physical ledgers now. Right now, computers are on the scene, things are moved on. Some people still handle pen and paper, but you don't have to. And so blockchain is just a way of keeping ledgers, keeping records without using pen and paper.

But The thing is different. People are the ones who are going to be keeping this same record. And this is just to make sure that transactions are authentic. You know, people are trying to authenticate the transactions. So back in the day, my father selling cement, maybe your own father, if you're listening to the show selling spare parts, or maybe your own mother selling, what's it called, Ankara wrappers or whatever.

So back in those days, you know, 30, 3030 years ago in Nigeria, you know, somebody sitting down writing out on paper, times change, Maybe somebody writes it on Excel or store it on the phone, but that's the whole idea. So blockchain is just essentially A distributed Ledger. You have lots of people keeping a Ledger about transactions that have been happening and everybody's trying to make sure that the transactions are legit,

transactions are authentic. So there are some Nigerian startups that I've been making noise here and there, you know, people trying to use the blockchain to improve financial services and other kind of services. Now there's been this crew that I've come across. I was chatting with their founder on LinkedIn. I think is is Kawai or something like sorry, no, is it Kawai or Akawai or something like that Akawai or Kawai? I can't remember.

But then what they're doing is they're using blockchain to authenticate academic records so that your transcripts can be available on the blockchain everywhere. Now of course, for Nigerians that makes lots of sense. It's not a fintech per SE, But you know, in Nigeria we have some unique challenges. You know, when you want to jackpot or you want to go for your masters, you know, jackpot is, what's the word, emigrating immigration.

So people are running out of Nigeria, they're trying to get to Canada and other places. So you're trying to jackpot or you want to go abroad for masters, depending on the school that you go to. Because my own school, the best university in all of Africa, or BAFA, ME at World War University. Unfortunately, ABAFA ME at Holloway University is not as progressive when it comes to technology. So back then, trying to get your transcript from OAU to Harvard or to whatever it is you want to study could be a nightmare.

We would have to go there in person because in OAU they wouldn't let somebody else pay on your behalf or initiate the process on your behalf. So you would have to leave where you were. I was in Kano at the time, doing my youth service. So you would have to leave Kano, go all the way to OAU, make the application pay, and then they wouldn't give you the transcript. I guess for security reasons, they wouldn't give you the transcript, They would send it to the university.

So you would not have to wait for OAU validate. I mean, drop the records, process your payment, and then send it through registered Nypost or whatever to Harvard. Nuts. If you apply to Harvard. And then all the while your heart is beating your chest. Like, I paid for this thing two weeks ago. Harvard hasn't gotten it. I paid for this thing four weeks ago. Harvard hasn't gotten it. I'm away. Here's my transcript missing, as have they chopped my money.

You know what's going on? So having a startup like this just makes a whole lot of sense. Because now I'm funny enough actually, when I was chatting with the guy who was on his way to OAU, that's my university and he got them to sign up for the idea. And I was impressed because back when I was in OAU, we didn't think or Bafim at Willow University was a forward thinking university. So I'm surprised that they're part of the pilot of this program.

So right now, you can have your academic records on blockchain validated and instead of going through the hassle of what people like me had to go through a couple of years ago, which is travel back to your school, go to Senate office, pay the money and then start, you know, pursuing them, start hassling them, you know, have they sent it? Yes, they sent it on night Post. Where is the tracker? Tracker is not working. And then you're wondering, ah,

it's been one week, it's been 2 weeks, it's been 3 weeks. My school has not received my transcript. You know what's going on. So with all this, this easily would remove a certain amount of stress involved in the process because you just pay or use already on the platform. I don't know how this thing is going to work. Let me guess, maybe Harvard or whoever is on the receiving end has to be on the platform as well. You open up a file.

You know what? Some of these things are beyond me because I don't even know how you view things that are stored in the blockchain Ledger. But bottom Ledger is these are supposed to be authentic academic records that have been issued by the Nigerian university and can be accessed by the western universities on the other end. So even though this is not a fintech per SE because they're not really solving problems in the financial sector, but you get the gist.

People are using blockchains. Nigerian boys and girls are using blockchain to try and solve some interesting problems and hoping to build businesses out of them. So this is just a small overview of what the fintech space is like in Nigeria now. If there's anything that I've left out, please connect with me on WhatsApp, on LinkedIn and let me know that this episode you did was pretty cool, but you left out this, this, this and that or this is working in Nigeria.

I've seen this kind of fintech in Nigeria. Shed some light on that as well. I'd love to do that so that people who are listening to the podcast get a good breath of what it is that is going on out there. What are young boys and young girls doing these days? You know, what are they? What are the fintech start-ups that are out there? So connect me on WhatsApp. My phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian.

Then on LinkedIn, my name is Tavishima Aidi I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name from the link. We're listening to this episode. Then you can use the spelling of my name and hunt me down on socials. So send me invites on LinkedIn or whatever. So we're not, yeah, LinkedIn, Instagram, anywhere. You know, I'll accept. But to be honest, I'm on LinkedIn every day. So that's your best bet on Instagram.

Yeah, I pop there maybe once a week, so. But if you want to catch me for a timely response, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, you'll get me. So thanks for your time and attention in tomorrow's episode. Since we're already at 20 minutes, we'll start looking at the challenges of selling your fintech ideas in Nigeria. So we've gone through the overview. Let's assume that you want to start one of these ideas either in mobile payments or you want to hook up something on online banking for your banks, You want to start a robot advisor, you're doing some crowdfunding thing,

or you have some fancy idea quite like this Akoi startup or Kawi startup. I can't remember the name. Yeah, looking for ways that you can use blockchain. Blockchain in your in your fintech. Yeah, so you've gotten the idea, you started raising funds. You're having problems selling the vision or selling the idea itself. So tomorrow and a couple of episodes after that, we'll start looking at how you use sales and business development skills to solve those problems.

So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.