Nigerian businesses that fail to overhaul their operations with digital technologies risk losing relevance as the country’s economy becomes increasingly driven by data, technology and digitally enabled services, Stanley Jacob, president of the Fintech Association of Nigeria, has warned.
Jacob, who is also group chief innovation and technology officer at Meristem Securities, said the divide between digitally native companies and traditional enterprises was no longer simply a technology gap but a “survival gap.”
Speaking at the maiden 2026 Business Innovation Series of the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce in Lagos, Jacob said digitisation had become the minimum requirement for businesses seeking to remain competitive in an economy with more than 200 million people, half of whom are under 30.
“Digitisation is the minimum requirement for relevance,” Jacob said in his presentation titled “Digitizing Business: Building Scalable, Future-Ready Enterprises.”
Nigeria’s digital market is estimated at $14 billion in 2026 and is growing at about 18 percent annually, with the market projected to reach $31 billion by 2031, according to figures presented by Jacob.
