Nigeria, Africa’s largest country by GDP and population, is among the continent’s fintech leaders with a lively crop of start-ups and a growing suite of digital offerings from mainstream banks and other companies.

COVID-19 speeded up the rate of online developments immensely. Virtual meetings, teleworking and digital payments were propelled into a daily fact of life for millions of Nigerians. Fintech revenues are forecast to reach an estimated US$543m by 2022, driven by increasing smartphone penetration and its unbanked population. What solutions are Nigerian fintech providers focusing on? How healthy is the broader ecosystem in terms of venture capital investment, skills and the regulatory environment? What are the key challenges and bottlenecks facing the country as its fintech sector matures? This isn’t just about fintech companies. This affects the entire economy and society directly. Africa can lay claim to having laid the foundations of fintech with the mobile money revolution springing out of Kenya back in 2007. Today, it remains a front-runner in financial innovation.