The acting Director-General, Security and Exchange Commission, Mary Uduk, has said that the commission is committed to boosting financial inclusion in the sector, by investing in technology that will make it easier for people to invest in the sector.
She said this during the 19th annual conference of the Risk Managers Association of Nigeria with the theme, ‘Economic recovery: Leveraging technology innovation,’ in Lagos.
The SEC boss spoke on the topic, ‘Deepening capital market activities through technological innovation: Opportunities and challenges’.
Uduk, who was represented by the Head, Risk Management, Okey Umeano, said, “We have started to spend money to learn how we can use technology to make things more efficient in the sector and facilitate investment for all those who are interested in investing in the stock market.
“If our country will compete with other countries in the world, we must put the right regulation in place.”
She said fintech was fast growing and there was a need to adapt to the changes it was bringing into the system.
She said that the commission had created a market-wide fintech committee to draw a road map that would channel the efforts it was putting into fintech to get result.
However, in its drive to adopt technology, Uduk said that it was encountering challenges which included skills gap and inadequate capacity.
“Each of these new products is unique and has to be treated as such, and regulators have to be knowledgeable about it,” she added.
Another challenge she mentioned was that the cost of technology acquisition was high, and maintenance and implementation could be difficult.
She said that the development of its rules and regulations and the amendment of the ISA Act could not be completed by the 8th National Assembly.
The SEC boss said, “Development of standard rules and guidelines is difficult. We must make our market safe and attractive to investors.”
On her part, the Chairman, RIMAN, Ms Folakemi Fatogbe, said, “The topic discussed today is a very apt topic for this time because similar oil producing countries like us such as Saudi Arabia and UAE are actually doing a lot in terms of technology to diversify the economy and the view really is that Nigeria would benefit a lot from technological innovation.
“It has been seen as a way of moving countries forward in terms of their economic growth and given our own population demographics where we have significant youth population and the youth population can be energised and galvanised by technology.
“Technology can also aid economic growth by creating efficiencies and by creating reach. So we recognise in RIMAN and as risk managers that we need to educate our people more on technology and how technological innovation can be used for the benefit of Nigeria.”
PUNCH
