Payments Forum Nigeria (PAFON), a collaborative platform spanning various sectors within the payments industry, has garnered sponsorship from key players such as Digital Encode Limited, Cybervergent, and Payble.
Preparations are underway for the inaugural PAFON event, set to be held in Lagos on Thursday, March 21, 2024, starting at 9 am.
The forum aims to delve deep into industry intricacies, offering insights from pivotal stakeholders including payment networks, technological innovators, prominent merchants, issuers, acquirers, and payment processors.
Over the years, the financial landscape has evolved significantly beyond traditional banking and major corporations.
Dr. Adewale Peter Obadare, Chief Visionary Officer (CVO) of Digital Encode Limited, shared insights leading up to the highly anticipated PAFON 1.0 event, themed “Payments: Trust, Security and Privacy in the AI Era”. He emphasized the growing customer demand for assurance regarding the safeguarding of sensitive data, including credit card information and personal details. As a result, security has emerged as a top priority within the payments industry.
He said that: “Secure payment processing ensures that data breaches are minimized, instilling confidence in customers to keep coming back. Nigerian financial institutions reported ₦159 billion ($201.5 million) lost to fraud cases since 2020, according to the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC). This is what the experts must tackle and customer awareness is key too”.
According to a Gartner report, the reliance on AI for privacy compliance technology is expected to surge to 40% by 2024, up from a mere 5% in 2019. Additionally, by 2025, it’s projected that 60% of large organizations will integrate at least one privacy-enhancing computation technique into their analytics, business intelligence, or cloud computing operations. The financial services industry is no exception to this trend.
Roosevelt Elias, co-founder of Payble, emphasized the significance of attending PAFON, labeling it a “must-attend” event. He highlighted the critical issues slated for discussion, emphasizing the need for concerted efforts in addressing them. Elias pointed out that the development of financially inclusive products necessitates a blend of technology and literacy, stressing that siloed approaches won’t suffice. Collaboration is imperative, particularly in achieving financial inclusion goals, especially for rural populations.
PAFON 1.0 will see the participation of notable industry players, including Digital Encode—a leading consultancy specializing in the design, management, and security of business-critical architecture; Cybervergent—a company dedicated to safeguarding business-sensitive data from cyber threats; and Payble—a fintech startup focused on modernizing local government payments. Joining them will be Inlaks, an IT company offering various solutions including core banking, fraud management, cybersecurity, cloud services, data center management, and enterprise risk management, among others.
Mr. Chike Onwuegbuchi, the co-founder of TechCastle Foundation, organisers of Payment Forum Nigeria (PAFON) stated that: “Our goal is to enable information exchange and knowledge sharing on key industry insights issues amongst key stakeholders, with the objective of ensuring a collaborative and proactive approach to push for policies that enable growth, tackling/mitigating fraud and limiting occurrences and losses”.
He further stated that the Forum’s aim is to; “educate and inform financial service players and other stakeholders on various issues and trends (both locally and globally); proactively share data/information amongst banks, Fintechs and other service providers, to enable prompt responses to prevent and/or limit (customer-related) losses; and discuss key Payments security trends”.
He added that: “Speakers will be drawn among industry players such as banks, Fintechs, mobile money operators, blockchain experts, Cybersecurity, etc., as we expect attendees from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); e-Banking Heads; Chief Compliance Officers of banks in Nigeria; Chief Internal Auditors of banks in Nigeria; Office of The National Security Adviser; Switching companies; the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission; Licensed Mobile Payment Operators; Electronic Payments Providers; Information Security Experts; Consumer Protection; Financial Policy and Regulation; Information Technology; Legal Services; Banking Supervision; Corporate Communication; Shared Services Office; Blockchain Security Experts, etc”.
