Fintech

Delivering Targeted and Effective Legal Counsel to Clients across Diverse Sectors within the FinTech Industry.

The Financial/Banking Sector has existed for over one hundred years in Nigeria and has always been and will remain an attractive sector with a high level of competition of over $9 billion in value pools. However attractive the traditional financial systems may seem, a major challenge amongst other numerous challenges faced by the banks is the inability to provide essential financial services to millions of Nigerians, most especially in the rural areas where the vast majority of customers are underserved. These challenges led to the speedy adaptation of FinTech in Nigeria which was seen as the solution to the challenges experienced by the financial sector in Nigeria.

The FinTech (Financial Technology) Sector backed by the introduction of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) cashless policy in 2012 and the Financial Inclusion Scheme amongst many other policies, has experienced exponential growth in Nigeria with multiple players stepping up to develop enhanced propositions across the value chain to address the challenges associated with quick loans, affordable payments, flexible savings, and investments, among others.

Although Fintech has experienced widespread acceptability and financial activities have increased tremendously in Nigeria, the sector is yet to catch up with the global fintech expectation as Fintech accounted for only around 1.25 per cent of retail banking revenues in 2019 and while fintech investments in Nigeria grew to approximately $460 million in 2019, the majority of which was from external investors, this was only a small fraction of the $36 billion invested in fintech globally.

Despite the enormous potential of Fintech in Nigeria, the sector is equally faced with challenges ranging from the hurdles of Regulatory compliance, issues about data protection and cyber security etc.

The Firm in understanding these potentials and challenges altogether has been able to position itself to provide the relevant legal services to its clients as distinguished below.

Our Capabilities:

Regulatory Compliance and Licensing
Payment Systems and Processing
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
Data Privacy and Cybersecurity
Financial Regulatory Advice
Intellectual Property Protection
Consumer Protection and Dispute Resolution

Venture Capital and Fundraising
Fintech Mergers and Acquisitions
Robo-Advisory and Investment Platforms
Insurance Technology (Insurtech)
Crowdfunding and Peer-to-Peer Lending
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Fintech Partnerships and Collaboration

Technology

By virtue of our involvement in this sector, the Firm has been able to understand the specific industry needs which have become obvious in the new market. The multi-layered collaborations as are often associated with the Technology and Fintech players have brought about several layers of dependency and these dependencies established through collaborations need to be thoroughly anticipated and thought through as they may become borderless.

These may in turn create restrictions in determining the suitable legal frameworks for each transaction.

As the Industry continues to expand, we witness the emergence of anticipatory issues and at Niji Oni & Co, we ensure to stay up to date with the trends, regulations, and policies in delivering our services.

Finance

At Niji Oni and Co., we pride ourselves on handling a wide range of corporate and commercial matters including joint ventures, private equities, mergers and acquisitions, foreign investments, corporate restructuring, banking transactions, debt recovery and insolvency; financing and refinancing transactions; project finance; corporate advisory in a variety of transactions; due diligence including corporate governance, risk management and regulatory compliance.