CeBIH Seeks Innovation-enabling Regulations in E-payment

The Committee of e-Banking Industry Heads (CeBIH) has called for a regulatory environment that promotes innovation in the e-payment industry.

Tunde Kuponiyi, group’s Chairman, who made the call at their recently concluded yearly retreat in Abuja, with the theme: “Payment System Vision 2020 – Creating an enabling environment through policy regulations,” said, for the industry to prosper and for innovation to thrive, a sound complementary regulatory framework is very much required.

“Such framework should provide a level playing field for all players to enable the customer to exercise his choices as regards choosing a particular service provider.

“Other important components for such a regulatory framework would also encompass customer protection issues, fraud prevention issues, security related issues and fair pricing,” he said.

Also speaking, a global retail payment expert, John Chaplin, advocated smart regulation for the payment system in Nigeria.

He said that though banks desire less regulation and right to better and smarter regulation, it is critical for sustainable competition, which is necessary for the growth of the payment industry.

“Frequent rule changes are signs of bad regulations and deter investment. The industry must actively work with regulators to achieve a good outcome. Clear, consistent, even handed and risk-based regulation is the goal.

“Leaving the market entirely to market forces will lead to higher cost, which would drive out everybody. Hence the aim of regulation should be to drive down cost,” he said.

Earlier, Kuponiyi explained that the retreat was designed to discourse the changes and challenges of the Payment Vison 2020 20 in Nigeria and how this should lead to a paradigm shift in the way banks are doing business, retaining and increasing their customer base.

“The basic underlying current that runs through this changing landscape is the ever increasing reliance on technology to cater to the needs of customers and process vast number of transactions including payment transactions.   

“The question is, are there positive strategic interventions toward the realisation of the vision 2020 20 or are they fragmented policies that will produce little or no impact in the overall scheme of things?

“I believe that some of the policies have pointed the industry to the direction of the goldmine. However, there needs to be the will to drive the policies by the regulator to see that the desired results manifest.

“For instance, PSV 2020 20 and some of the adjoining policies and guidelines released by CBN reveal some untapped opportunities for banks.

“In one of such policies, CBN made it clear that financial inclusion should be seen not only as a social responsibility, but also as a potential business model because of the huge untapped market that it seeks to bring into the fold of banking services.

“Thus, this ‘bottom of the pyramid’ which comprises a huge section of the Nigerian population presents a large untapped market for Nigerian banks,” Kuponiyi added.