Osinbajo said this at an interactive
session with graudands of Edo Tech Park, in Benin City, Edo, on Friday.
He said that the Federal Government was
committed to supporting young tech entrepreneurs and creating enabling
environment for them to thrive.
“I think that one of the crucial things
that the Federal Government has done is what we call the Technical and Advisory
Council on Creativity and Technology.
“That council was set up with young people
who are in the tech sector and in the entertainment sector.
“The whole idea was for young people to
advise in the formulation of policy in technology and the creative space.
“The reason why we decided to that is
because technology for example is all over the world,’’ Osinbajo said.
According to him, one of the reasons why
Nigeria has a good number of successful fintechs is because of the creativity
council.
Osinbajo said that the council looked at
all the policies and regulations around the licensing and regulation of payment
companies.
“Many of the fintech companies fitted into
that space; but the problem that in order to do anything in the financial
space, you probably will need a banking licence or a licence of some sort.
“So, if you are going to be handling a
service of any kind or lending money, especially large sums of money, you
probably will need a banking licence; now a banking licence is N25 billion to
be able to do that.
“So, what the council did, working with the
CBN, was to look at other types of licences that could be given to people who
are in the fintech space; doing financial processing of various kinds of
services in that space; who are not banks but who in many ways, behave like
banks in some particular areas,’’ he added.
He said that the CBN, then, developed a
number of licences which were issued to fintech companies but were not banking
licences.
The vice president said that several of
these companies had become billion dollar companies because a space was opened
up for them.
“So, you will find that there are several
companies now that lend money and this is really good because it opened up
micro-credit space.
“A lot of small businesses that want to
borrow but they don’t have collateral but you find a lot of these companies
that are enabled by technology have the algorithms that can help to very
quickly tell whether this person looks will pay back and how they will pay
back.
“So, without necessary asking for any
collateral, they are able to advance credit just by the use of technology.
“So, that’s one very important things that
government has done; government, by the way is a regulator; one of the things
that we like to do is to avoid government getting in the way of people who are
trying to do their business well.’’
According to him, too much government
involvement in the business space will create chaos, hence it is better for it
to operate as a regulator.
He said that another critical factor was
funding—funding for those who were involved in the tech space—as it was one
area where the government was also doing a lot of work.
“At the moment, we have an AfDB fund in the
order of about 600 million dollars.
“We hope that it come into place early next
year; AfDB has already approved it; the board has already approved it; so, we
are ready to take on that fund and that fund is called the Digital and Creative
Enterprise (iDICE) fund.
“The whole idea is that it will support
enterprise such this park for training; it will support individual efforts of
persons in various areas of technology and creativity.
“Now, the problem always is accessing
government credit, it is always that people are not aware or the process is
difficult and all of that.
“Which is why we are going to have a
website; and we are going to have a lot of sensitisation training just to
enable people to better understand how to access these types of facilities and
what to do in order to be eligible for the facilities,’’ he said.
Osinbajo had earlier unveiled the Edo
Shared Facility for Furniture Production in Benin City.
The vice president also performed the
ground breaking of the permanent site of the Edo Tech Park.
In a vote of thanks, Gov. Godwin Obaseki,
lauded the vice president’s interest and impact in the tech and creative
sector.
“Three years ago, when you gave us the
first innovation hub in the South-South; that mustard seed you sowed that day
is what you saw at the take-off campus of the Tech Park, which you visited and
met the first set of graduands.
“And that deed is what has brought us here
this afternoon and has germinated to reflect where we want to be as a people,”
Obaseki said.
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