Nigeria: Forum Advocates Digital Trust, Innovation to Boost Payment Infrastructure

Industry stakeholders in the payments industry have stressed the need for digital trust among users of digital platforms as well as the need for continuous innovation on the part of payments software developers in order to enhance payments infrastructure across the country.

They said this during the Payments Forum Nigeria (PAFON) conference, in Lagos, themed: 'Fair Digital Payments as a Catalyst for Deepening Financial Inclusion in Nigeria'.

Keynote speaker at the conference, Prof. Adewale Peter Obadare, said new vulnerabilities in the payments industry have necessitated the need for digital trust and continuous innovation, coupled with better regulation that will promote cybersecurity awareness.

Obadare who is also the Chief Visionary Officer (CVO) of Digital Encode Limited, said the hackers would continue to invade the payments infrastructure for personal and selfish gains, because they will always want to go where the money is, hence the need for innovation and network resilience that will support digital trust.

"In cybersecurity, there are two types of attacks that you can experience. The structured attack (20 per cent) and the unstructured attack (80 per cent). The immunity of a lot of payments infrastructure is down because of continuous attacks on their networks. So there are so many payment infrastructures that are sick on the internet because in the last three weeks, that Nigeria's cyberspace has been under attack, and cybercrimes have grown in numbers" Obadare said.

Vice President, FintechNGR, Dr. Jameelah Sherrief-Ayedu, who was represented by Mr. Chinedu Anya, spoke on the sub-theme: 'Utilizing Credit Data to Drive Deeper Financial Inclusion'.

According to her, "A transaction that starts and ends in cash is not just a transaction, but a missed opportunity for growth, for possibilities, and for transformation. The real issue before us is not access but fairness, because inclusion without fairness is an illusion. If digital payments are unreliable, unpredictable, and exclusionary, then they do not drive inclusion, they erode it," Sherrief-Ayedu said.

Read the original article on This Day.