Banking
Stakeholders Seek Joint Effort to Grow Africa’s Fintech Industry
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The need for stakeholder to collaborate in order to improve Africa’s fintech industry has been stressed by stakeholders in the sector.
At the launch of the continent’s first blockchain platform for payment processing, Zone, designed by Appzone, participants agreed that the finance and payment landscape needs more hands on deck.
They applauded Appzone for the initiative, saying it will play in decentralizing payments and inter banks transactions across Africa.
The CEO of Sparkle, Mr Uzoma Dozie, in his keynote address, disclosed that with the right amount of collaboration and adoption, Zone will improve existing payment infrastructure and create robust experiences for players in the market.
“Zone is built on a new technology that addresses trust and transparency in the sense that users don’t have to rely on the bank’s central system where they are locked out of the process.
“With Zone, users are more aware, and they perfectly understand every single bit of the process, which creates the transparency needed to build trust and increased adoption,” the CEO of the defunct Diamond Bank stated.
He further said the COVID-19 pandemic made people more aware of the need to embrace digital finance, fostering the appreciation needed to increase adoption of digital finance and payment technologies.
Speaking about the unique features of Zone, the CEO and founder of Appzone Group, Mr Obi Emetarom, described Zone as more than a blockchain payment platform.
He described Zone as a financial network, made up of different financial institutions, that delivers payment processes and real time settlement.
“The Zone platform offers users exciting opportunities, it is a ubiquitous network because is connects all sorts of financial institutions from payment companies, micro finance banks to fintech to digital banks.
“Zone also uses peer to peer routing, which means that all the institutions leveraging the platform can connect directly without any middleman, ensuring reliability and scalability,” added Mr Emetarom.
“Zone has also started off a network across Africa that enables anyone to do real time transactions anywhere on the continent. Ultimately, Zone is set to deliver a compliant and stable pan African digital currency,” he stated.
While speaking on the rationale behind the launch of Zone, Mr Uche Elendu, CEO of Appzone Switch said: “We are happy to officially unveil Zone as a decentralized blockchain based payment infrastructure that enables real-time settlement of fiat transactions, both in-country and out-country, while enabling the retail distribution of stable digital currencies including Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) in Africa.”
The plan is for Zone to manage stable coin wallets for regular individuals on the same distributed ledger that currently facilitates payment authorization and settlement.
With 10 commercial banks in Nigeria already connected to the network, Zone provides banks and Fintechs with simple APIs for various types of transactions including account-to-account transfers, merchant payments, and cash transactions at ATMs or agent locations.
The platform’s architecture achieves high through-put and record transaction success rates, while eliminating typical reconciliation issues that delay refunds to customers where necessary.
By connecting every financial service provider to Zone’s decentralized payment network, Appzone Switch envisions a future beyond cash where payments are frictionless and instantaneous within and between every African country so that Africa can accelerate trade and economic prosperity.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The six edition of the Hackaholics of Wema Bank Plc has produced 20 top finalists shared equally between two streams, Ideathon and Hackathon.
The Hackathon finalists are Rapid DEV, Secure IT, Neurafeed, Trust Lock Babcock, Pulse Track, IlluminiTrust, Trust Lock FUTA, Fix Fraud AI, KASH Flow and VOC AI.
The Ideathon finalists include PLOY, Fertitude, VarsityScape, Mama ALERT, StockMed, Chao, All Arbitrate, FarmSlate, Sane AI and Cycle X.
They emerged after a two-day pre-pitch held on December 16 and 17, 2025, for the grand finale slated for Friday, December 19, 2025.
They grand finale of Hackaholics 6.0 will convene the top players in Africa’s tech and innovation ecosystem, creating an avenue for these finalists to not only put their creativity to the ultimate test but also give their solutions visibility to potential investors for additional funding opportunities beyond the prizes to be won.
The prizes to be won for the Ideathon include N25 million for the winner, N20 million for the first runner-up, N15 million for the second runner-up and N5 million each for two women-led teams.
In the Hackathon category, the first to fourth-place winners will receive N20 million, N15 million, N10 million and N5 million, respectively.
The pre-pitch saw the top 43 contenders battle in a game of innovation and problem solving, presenting compelling pitches for a chance to make it to top 10 in their respective streams.
After a rigorous stretch of pitches and presentations, the top 20 emerged, securing their spot in the grand finale of Hackaholics 6.0.
“Hackaholics started off as a hackathon and morphed into an ideation. For Hackaholics 6.0, the sixth edition, we decided to give both the builders of new solutions and the refiners of existing ones, an opportunity to make meaningful impact.
“For us at Wema Bank, we understand that innovation isn’t just building from scratch. Sometimes, it’s looking at what exists and developing new ways to optimise that and create more efficiency. This is the idea behind our two-stream Ideathon-Hackathon structure.
“Every year, Hackaholics shows us just how eager and motivated Nigerian youth are when it comes to exploring creativity and innovation, and we are honoured to be the institution that provides them with the platform and resources to put this drive to good use.
“We toured seven cities, indulged 1,460 participants and discovered hundreds of remarkable ideas; some of which needed some refining and some of which deserved to move to the next stage.
“For those who needed to go back to the drawing board, we provided useful guidance and for the top contenders, we were able to shortlist to the top 43, who proceeded to the pre-pitch. To every participant, Wema Bank is proud of you. This is just the beginning,” the chief executive of Wema Bank, Mr Moruf Oseni, said.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) says it will enforce penalties against designated banks that delay the remittance of customs revenue, in a move aimed at strengthening transparency and safeguarding government earnings.
This was disclosed in a statement on the NCS official account on X, formerly known as Twitter and signed by its spokesman, Mr Abdullahi Maiwada, who said the delays undermine the efficiency, transparency, and integrity of government revenue administration.
“The Nigeria Customs Service has noted instances of delayed remittance of customs revenue by some designated banks following reconciliation of collections processed through the B’odogwu platform,” the statement read.
“Such delays constitute a breach of remittance obligations and negatively impact the efficiency, transparency, and integrity of government revenue administration.
“In line with the provisions of the Service Level Agreement executed between the Nigeria Customs Service and designated banks, the Service hereby notifies stakeholders of the commencement of enforcement actions against banks found to be in default of agreed remittance timelines.”
Mr Maiwada disclosed that any bank that fails to remit collected Customs revenue within the prescribed timeline will be liable to penalty interest calculated at three per cent above the prevailing Nigerian Interbank Offered Rate for the period of the delay.
He added that affected banks would be formally notified of the delayed amounts, the applicable penalty, and the deadline for settlement.
“Accordingly, any designated bank that fails to remit collected Customs revenue within the prescribed period shall be liable to penalty interest calculated at three per cent above the prevailing Nigerian Interbank Offered Rate for the duration of the delay.
“Affected banks will receive formal notifications indicating the delayed amount, applicable penalty, and the timeline for settlement,” the statement read.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The deputy managing director of First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) Limited, Mr Ini Ebong, has offloaded some shares of FBN Holdings Plc, the parent firm of the banking institution.
A regulatory notice from the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited confirmed the development on Thursday.
It was disclosed that the transaction occurred on Friday, December 12, 2025, on the floor of the stock exchange.
The sale involved about 11.8 million shares, precisely 11,783,333 units traded at N31.14 per share, amounting to about N366.9 million.
Mr Ebong, who studied Architecture from University of Ife and obtained Bachelor and Master of Science degrees, became the DMD of First Bank in June 2024. Prior to this appointment, he was Executive Director, Treasury and International Banking since January 2022.
He was previously the Group Executive, Treasury and International Banking, a position he held since 2016 after serving as the bank’s Treasurer from 2011 to 2016.
Before joining First Bank, he was the Head of African Fixed Income and Local Markets Trading, Renaissance Securities Nigeria Limited, the Nigerian registered subsidiary of Renaissance Capital. He also worked with Citigroup for 14 years as Country Treasurer and Sales and Trading Business Head.
He has a passion for market development and has worked actively to drive change and internationalisation of the Nigerian financial markets: foreign exchange, fixed income and securities.
He has worked closely with regulatory bodies such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Debt Management Office (DMO) in assisting with the development of fresh monetary and foreign exchange policies, to broaden and deepen markets and open them up to international practices.
At various times he has facilitated and delivered courses and seminars on a wide variety of subjects covering Money Markets, Securities and Foreign exchange trading and market risk management subjects to regulators, corporate customers, banks and market participants.
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