By RARZACK OLAEGBE
Lagos has everything for everybody. It has something for you. The city is one of the most amazing places in the world. It has wonderful beaches, skyscrapers and parks. The entertainment options are unlimited. As a city, Lagos has more job opportunities beyond your imaginations. That is why undergraduates want to serve in Lagos. Young executives want to work in Lagos. Artisan, mason and cobbler want to earn a living in Lagos.
They all troop in, searching for that one lost gold coin. Some find it. Others found it. It is not magic. It is not luck. It is hard work. It is tenacity. It is sheer doggedness. Akwaaba Lagos! Welcome to Lagos. As a rough diamond, Lagos has become a world-class destination. You can argue these facts if you like. Soro Soke!
Lagos has won awards as the city with densely populated areas, busy streets, dirty drains and massive traffic jams in Nigeria. With these awards, would you say Lagos still an amazing city? Yes. It has a flamboyant ruling class. It has several kings, kings with extravagant spaces and places. You are not a king if you don’t have a retinue of sidekicks and side chicks. If you are a regular at one of the prodigious parties, you will party all year round. Scrumptious, delicious and luscious, Lagos party scene has it. If you live in Lagos, you will not want to leave Lagos. You cannot argue that fact. But maybe you are right. After all, Lagos is imperfect. Then, think about it. No city is perfect.
Lagos has one good thing. Lagos has a thriving Fintech ecosystem. I didn’t say that. Startup Blink has confirmed it.
So in its imperfection, Lagos has one good thing. Lagos has a thriving Fintech ecosystem. I didn’t say that. Startup Blink has confirmed it. In its 2019 Global Startup Ecosystem Rankings, Startup Blink has analysed 1,000 cities and 100 countries. Lagos has emerged as the best startup ecosystem in Africa. It ranked ahead of Kenya and Cape Town.
That is not surprising. When the financial services payment processor, Strike was looking for a Fintech startup to acquire, Strike boarded a plane all the way from California, USA and landed in Lagos. The company came for a startup called Paystack. Stripe paid about $8 billion for the startup that was birthed in the bowel of Lagos, the imperfect city.
However, with its imperfection, Lagos has its own week when it celebrates Fintech. Lagos Fintech Week is a global event that showcases Fintech opportunities, solutions, services and partnerships through the lens of Lagos as a city. Held annually, the event has attracted participants from diverse institutions in Lagos and outside Nigeria. For instance, in the 2020 edition, the British Deputy High Commissioner, Ben Llewellyn-Jones and Lagos State Commissioner for Finance, Dr Rabiu Olowo were among the dignitaries that delivered keynotes.
Besides, the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN], Ade Shonubi attended Lagos Fintech Week in 2019. He unveiled some significant numbers concerning Lagos as a leading state in terms of cashless transactions. Rising from 2020 edition, however, Fintech experts who spoke at the event revealed what so many people did not know about Lagos.
In its beautiful imperfection, Lagos has over 14.3 million metro population. The city has 30 per cent active payments terminal penetration. In the country, Lagos has more banked population at 64 per cent than other states. It has a high number of bank branches. It has more automated teller machines than other states. It has more mobile money and bank agents. The Fintech experts then concluded that Lagos “is ripe for a cashless scheme”. You don’t think so? You must be dreaming.
Well, kindly return to earth. According to the Fintech mavens, Lagos has a widespread telecommunication infrastructure coverage. It has a strong retail and transport networks. The city has a growing adoption for digital finance. It has robust participation in the Fintech ecosystem. It has a significant diversity of financial technology service players more than any other states. If you are still seeing Lagos through your defective lens, you would not see these milestones.
All the Fintech specialists at the highly cerebral Lagos Fintech Week agreed that Lagos is an international business hub. They envisioned that Lagos needs a cashless revolution. The cashless revolution, they chorused, should ideally be driven by local needs. It should also reflect global directions for payment systems. It should have a technology stack. It should have products architecture and access models.
With its inadequacy, Lagos has a higher rate of financial access and inclusion than the rest of the country. Maybe that is why Lagos has more economic and money laundering activities than other states, too? You will not scrutinise that part because it fits into the picture in your mind. Maybe that is how the mind works. But that is not how Lagos works. Lagos is still under construction, and under those sand dunes, have emerged significant signposts.
In addition, it is what you have inside of you that shines through when you reside in Lagos. If you can engineer software that can perform magic and make Mitchell Elegbe and John Obaro green with envy, Lagos will help you birth it, nurture it and transform it into a unicorn.
Snuggling on Lagos Island is the first unicorn in Africa. Interswitch is not a pushover. Visa has come to eat at the dining table of Interswitch. That story has been told over and over. However, another impactful Fintech firm, the only one with its own magnificent edifice, SystemSpecs resides on Lagos Island, Lekki. In fact, SystemSpecs came from the dirt of Obalende. For many years, SystemSpecs reigned as the Obalende King.
Today, it has relinquished that title. SystemSpecs, a 28-year old Fintech company, has evolved from a 5-man software firm to an African technology giant with ground-breaking solutions including Remita, HumanManager and Paylink. It has become the epitome of what every Fintech startup aspires. This is a fact. You cannot argue this one.
In addition, it is what you have inside of you that shines through when you reside in Lagos. If you can engineer software that can perform magic and make Mitchell Elegbe and John Obaro green with envy, Lagos will help you birth it, nurture it and transform it into a unicorn. On the other hand, if you are a tiger, that is what Lagos will feed.
Lagos has a challenge for the next Fintech startup. What does it have for you? Paystack has conquered its own hurdle. That is why the managers of Strike was mesmerized by the amazing works Shola and Ezra have put into Paystack. Paystack stacked its prevue so high so that Strike paid so much to acquire it. Flutterwave may be headquartered in California, it is a perfect extract from the imperfection of Lagos. Lagos has everything. Fintech, filth and funk. What does Lagos have for you?
*Olaegbe ([email protected])
