The compliance strategist in this exclusive with Tosin Clegg explains why banks, fintechs and public institutions must modernise compliance without sacrificing trust, inclusion or human judgment.
Your recent RegTech article has attracted attention because it does not present technology as a magic solution. What was the central message?The central message is that compliance cannot be modernised by buying software alone. A tool can help, but a tool cannot decide who owns a control, whether the data are reliable, whether an automated alert is fair, or whether a regulator can trace the decision later. In that article, we argued that readiness must come before automation. If a bank has poor data, unclear ownership and weak audit trails, AI may simply make those weaknesses faster and harder to see. My approach is to move compliance from paper to proof. By proof, I mean documented controls, named owners, traceable evidence, human review and a clear explanation of why a decision was made.Why should this matter to Nigeria’s financial sector now?Ibiyeye: Nigeria is one of the most dynamic financial markets in Africa. We have strong banks, fast-growing fintechs, mobile-first customers, cross-border flows, digital wallets, payments innovation and a young population that expects speed. But speed without trust is dangerous. If fraud grows, if customers are wrongly excluded, if KYC records are weak, if data privacy is not respected, or if AI outputs cannot be explained, the system loses credibility. Nigeria needs RegTech not because technology is fashionable, but because the financial system must be able to scale safely. Compliance should not be treated as a brake on innovation. Done properly, it is what allows innovation to survive regulatory scrutiny and public trust.
