BaaS: Tomorrow’s financial solutions, today

BaaS: Tomorrow’s financial solutions, today

 

 

The world of financial services is changing – for the better. A multitude of virtual banking and payment options, cardless and accountless services, and now, Banking as a Service (BaaS) are making financial inclusion the norm instead of a privilege, says Anton Coertzen, CCO of leading fintech enablement partner Ukheshe. 

 

BaaS is the latest technology making waves in the financial services world and Gartner predicts it will hit mainstream adoption within two years. BaaS is one of four technologies that Gartner says have the potential for high levels of transformation in the banking sector – the others being chatbots, public cloud for banking and social messaging payments apps.

 

A Deloitte report also says BaaS is becoming ubiquitous. “It’s reconfiguring the banking value chain, opening the door to disintermediation, and enabling new sources of growth,” it notes.

 

How does BaaS work?

BaaS came about because the ability to offer banking services such as cards and loans as a non-bank enterprise improves the customer experience and boosts revenue. However, offering banking services requires a banking licence that is difficult to obtain – it also requires significant capital and compliance with strict regulations.

 

BaaS allows licenced banks to integrate their services directly into the products of non-bank businesses. This means any business can offer its customers digital banking services such as mobile bank accounts, debit cards, loans, and payment services, without needing to acquire a banking licence. The non-financial business can also distribute these financial products under its own brand.

 

All of this happens through third-party distributors. These distributors build tech that allows digital banks, fintechs, and other third parties to connect directly with a bank’s systems via APIs.

 

In a nutshell, it enables embedded finance: banks integrate fintech or other FSP products into the banking journey (BaaS), while non-financial companies embed banking products into their own services (embedded finance).

 

The benefits of BaaS

BaaS is reconfiguring the banking value chain by enabling third-party distributors to offer banking products and services. It’s opening the door to disintermediation and enabling new sources of growth for all parties – whether the bank, the fintech enabler, or the third party.

 

Ukheshe offers banks and other financial institutions a cloud-based API-first BaaS platform that can be white-labelled – essentially allowing the bank’s customers to offer embedded finance offerings to their own customers, under their own brand. Examples include wallet as a service, card as a service, KYC as a service, and more.

 

Here are just some of the benefits of Eclipse within BaaS:

 

For banks:

  • Increased sources of revenue: Banks BaaS with Eclipse offers increased sources of revenues for their customers. Not only are banks able to enhance their value proposition to their existing consumer and merchant base, but they could also pivot to be the bank of choice for other Fintechs and Telcos in the market.
  • Cost savings: Banks can leverage third-party technology and infrastructure. Eclipse provides a dedicated environment with a frontend that is specific to banking institutions’ specific needs.
  • Increased customer insights: more customers mean increased insight into customer preferences and experiences. Eclipse provides exactly that – BaaS that has the customer at the heart of every solution, with less hassle, all through a single platform.

 

For non-banks and fintechs:

  • Less red tape: BaaS allows fintechs and businesses to bypass banking licence regulation by integrating directly with a bank’s system through banking APIs.
  • Increased customer trust: businesses can leverage consumers’ trust in banks to increase their customer base.
  • Higher competition: BaaS enables competition in financial services by enabling non-banks to offer core banking services. This means that more players can enter the market, innovation gets a push, customers get access to new products, and it leads to greater financial transparency.

 

The future

BaaS will become to fintech what Amazon Web Services is to data centres – a game changer; an absolute essential.

 

Through its multi-functional platform, Eclipse, Ukheshe has long been ahead of the fintech curve by offering both BaaS and embedded finance – even though it falls under the Software as a Service (SaaS) category.

 

Our strategy has always been to partner with banks, telcos and fintechs to shape their digital payment offering to their customers. It is core to our services to help shape their BaaS solution. We, in effect, enable the enablers and increase financial solutions to banking customers

WE TRY TO BALANCE LEADING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION WITH HIGHLY SKILLED RESOURCES – MITIGET BOSS

WE TRY TO BALANCE LEADING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION WITH HIGHLY SKILLED RESOURCES – MITIGET BOSS

 

 

In this media chat, the Chief Executive Officer of Mitiget Assurance and Technology Services Limited, an indigenous information technology (IT), Sunny Ukeachu talked about how Mitiget has been able to help public sectors and financial sector in the area of cyber security and business continuity. He also made a case of challenges of power as it affects their operations and also their strides in other African nations. Anthony Nwosu captured this in an exclusive interview.

 

Mitiget Assurance and Technology Services Limited  is a leading Enterprise Information Security company in Nigeria, tell us more about the company?

Mitiget is an enterprise Information Security company enabling small and large organizations and business to build information management and security resilience. We help them in critical areas such as cyber-immunity by using people, process, and technological solutions. Our promise is to deliver measurable value from where we take over, minimum of 25% improvement. Just as our mission statement, we are poised to make a mark in African markets and globally by providing superior assurance and technology solutions to our customers through innovations, professionalism, and ethics. And we have done quite a bit.

Mitiget Assurance and Technology Services Limited has been into the IT ecosystem for some time, tell us more about your strides in this ecosystem?

As part of our security solution delivery, we have bundled information technology (IT ) as a leverage for businesses to create value. For instance, in delivering a secure data center or server room for our customers, we design, implement, secure and support all the IT infrastructure, be it, structured cabling for data, voice or power, physical security including CCTV, Access control, vaults, perimeter reinforcement and networking covering supply and configuration of switches, routers, firewalls and access points, the deployment of hardened IT hardware with supporting applications and services. If you are moving into a new office and need a partner to work with for your end-to-end IT and secure tech services, you cannot go wrong with Mitiget. We try to balance leading-edge technology innovation with highly skilled resources to deliver cost-effective, dependable, and adaptive IT solutions that meet or exceed our customer needs.

Mitiget is doing a lot to help organizations go paperless, tell us more about your strides in this space?

You know that our communication in Nigerian and many parts of the world are largely paper based. Many organizations have been carrying operational risks associated with storage of legacy documents with significant impacts. Many may have been exposed to looming financial and or reputational losses without knowing. Mitiget created a model that successfully helps many businesses in different industries to digitize, store and retrieve these critical documents in a controlled manner. From issuing the governance framework for effective records management to setting up a secure archive for documents within the retention period to scanning paper documents to any format, irrespective of volume, to deployment of a document management software to workflow automation. Because, we are an information security company, whenever we are implementing projects of this nature or we are hand-holding organizations through their digital transformation roadmap, protection of information asset is paramount. Apart from our projects with clients, we have also done some interventions for some past failed projects. We cannot stop until you go paperless because it gives any organization competitive advantage.

You have made tremendous strides in the public sector, tell us about these strides such as GDPR Implementation, PCI DSS Implementation, and ISO 22301 Certification?

Yes, we have enabled public sectors to come up with their digitization process and we have been on that journey with select few of them.  Recall that earlier it was stated that we approach security from process point of view. That we have done helping businesses implement and comply with both privacy and security standards in Nigeria. Some examples of them that we or example, GDPR, NDPR, ISO 27001, ISO 22301, and PCI DSS. Apart from helping them walk-through the implementations of the requirement of each of the standards, we hand-hold them through successful certification. We do this once and hit the target for them while entrenching the culture of continual improvement. Our footprints are in financial and public sectors in Nigeria.

What about the ECOWAS Region and other parts of Africa, what are your footprint in these areas?

We have done couple of interventions for organizations in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa to help them improve maturity in their frameworks around these standards. Another area we have excelled is in the provision of Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR) solutions. We are the number BCP facility provider in Nigeria. Some financial institutions use our facility to run their periodic BCP/DRP tests to ensure resilience and to meet regulatory requirement. Apart from that, both individual and corporates use our cloud-based data backup solution with cybersecurity protection for an assurance that their data is secure, and business can quickly recover at any unforeseen event.

How can Nigerian’s key into your training programs such as Cybersecurity, risk management, programming?

Mitiget Learning Academy (MLA) is an arm of Mitiget that provides cutting edge technical learning interventions and capacity building endeavors for small, medium, and large-scale enterprises both in public and private sectors in Nigeria. This was our way of helping to develop relevant skills to support our teeming unemployed and unemployable youths. All our courses are hands-on, and project driven with the objective of exposing the trainees to real-life tasks and problem solving. Those that would want to take up career in cybersecurity, risk management, python programming, web and mobile app development should make Mitiget learning Academy their starting point to build requisite capability to be relevant in the marketplace in their job of dream. We are discussing with a strategic partner, a tech incubator, to collaborate with us in identify and bring together some of our trainees who excelled and are ready to take their solutions and ideas to a startup level to nurture them. Our focus is around tech services using the skills we impart on young people.

What can you say was your greatest achievement this 2022?

Mitiget’s greatest achievement in 2022 was its deliberate stride in helping the governments at all levels to build and deliver physical security and effective surveillance to protect students and staff of schools. We use an innovative technology powered by solar system to help support government efforts in fighting the prevalent insecurity in our country Nigeria. This is apart from helping a financial institution digitize and secure more than 10 million document ranging from active to legacy ones.

What are your challenges that you face as an InfoSec firm in Nigeria?

Inadequate power supply and efficient internet are the biggest challenge tech services ecosystem faces. The cost of generating our own power stifles creativity and innovations. It drains resources that would have been channeled to spark up economic activities and foreign exchange earnings for the country. Another challenge is the lack of a skilled workforce. The ‘Japa’ syndrome has aggravated the issue. However, we see opportunities in all these.

You deploy Acronis as a cyber security solution. tell us more about it?

Yes. We have a strategic partnership with Acronis in delivering disaster recovery solutions with cyber protection. For CIOs or even CTOs, Acronis Cloud is one platform that gives a simplified management console for automation of data backup and cybersecurity. It gives rest of mind to those that value their critical data. More so, the solution is affordable.

Data Centre, Business Continuity and Disaster recovery are huge areas that you have made an impact on. How will you describe this space?

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a lot of paradigm shifts. Apart from adoption of remote working, enabling services and technologies were also adopted. In the data center space, focus shifted to hybrid cloud, solid-state storage, and sustainability measures. Demand for cloud services will continue even in the coming year. For MSMEs and large organizations conscious of protecting their data, they should think of Mitiget. We do data right anytime, any day, anywhere. We are the home of data center management expertise. Whether you need a complete design, incremental improvements, accredited servicing, and maintenance or even IT infrastructure decommissioning, we make them happen.

What are we to expect from you this 2023?

Great things are coming in 2023. Mitiget is an ambitious brand. Apart from continuing providing superior assurance and technology solutions to our customers through innovations, professionalism, and ethics, we will be a robust solution for schools to secure our children’s future. This is big and will disrupt the educational technology (EduTech) industry. Our goal is to provide exceptional and innovative solutions that enable our customers to make smarter decisions and maximize their potential.

 

“…That we have done helping businesses implement and comply with both privacy and security standards in Nigeria. Some examples of them that we or example, GDPR, NDPR, ISO 27001, ISO 22301, and PCI DSS. Apart from helping them walk-through the implementations of the requirement of each of the standards, we hand-hold them through successful certification. We do this once and hit the target for them while entrenching the culture of continual improvement. Our footprints are in financial and public

WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO OFFER WORLD CLASS CYBERSECURITY SOLUTIONS FOR TEN YEARS IN NIGERIA – ETHNOS IT BOSS

WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO OFFER WORLD CLASS CYBERSECURITY SOLUTIONS FOR TEN YEARS IN NIGERIA – ETHNOS IT BOSS

Ethnos IT Security Solutions Limited is celebrating 10 years as an IT Security solution provider. Can we know how it all started?

As a company we were designed to provide security solutions to organisations, businesses and others. As technology keeps improving we came to knowledge that security is the backbone of technology. We can’t talk about technology advancement without thinking of how to secure your business assets and human to human engagements. We, at Ethnos IT Solutions have grown with the growth of technology, Today, technology is looking at artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, metaverse, digital transformation, Holography and many others. We have grown with these new technologies and also improved in our capacity and skillset to support our customers as they consume these technologies. We have grown our market base, personnel, in terms of global technical engagements we have grown also. That is the journey. Someone said if I survive 5 years it means we would be in business for long and thank God we have survived these 5 years and we are ten today. Ten years has been a good experience for us. We have our ups and downs but we keep evolving.

Are you focused in B2B relationship or B2C relationship as it pertains to cyber security business?

Currently, we have a wealth of experience and we have changed our thinking and vision as a company. What we do now is to solve real problems for organisation and we are not limited in our thinking. We are not limited in any area of cyber security. Companies and organisations are on a journey as it pertains to business and we come in to solve problems for organisations in terms of security. We are no longer at this stage delivering products but solving problems. Some customers we evaluate them, some we train them and improve their cyber hygiene culture, some we deploy technologies to control their touchpoints, some we help on their regulatory compliance and certification journeys. We do firewall, application security, database security or perimeter security. So, we look at businesses and implement threat management and we have platforms that we can plugin your environment and help you control and detect threats from internet exposure to data base etc. We detect and remediate these threats. We also conduct threat hunting and keep checking what criminals will check for, we detect it before the criminals. We specialise in solving problems for customers regardless of what you are doing.

Do you do Penetration and vulnerability testing for companies?

Yes, we always do that for customers, before we implement anything, we first assess your threat and risk level… we do what we call threat assessment. This is the first level we take. Currently, we are conducting vulnerability and assessment testing for most of the stockbrokers as required by the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

What do you think about security breaches in Nigerian banking system?

There is the roadmap from Central Bank for banks on the levels of protections that should be in place. They have gone to define some framework that the banks must have, they are also looking at mobile environment such as mobile applications. If the CBN defines a roadmap, then banks must follow them because they are developed from expert experience and advise. So, banks must follow these guidelines. I’m not aware the Nigerian government has enacted a law that compels every organization to make their breaches public. This is what a responsible government must do. Banks are making huge efforts and investment to protect their data and that of their customers. I do sympathize with them because as they borrow new frameworks and technologies, they sometimes run into difficulties and no organization is breach proof and I know that the banks and CBN aren’t sleeping.

https://ethnos.com.ng

What about independent merchants and those deploying mobile apps?

As of the merchants, I don’t know how much regulatory frameworks are into this area. People are spinning out all kinds of mobile app, depending on what they are offering and these apps collate critical information from people and we do not know how they store and process it. We do not know the level of investment and I do not know how they do their source code analysis etc? We know how much source code analysis cost. The criticality of source code environment determines how strong the app is and criminals are now looking in that direction to launch attacks… there is the need to regulate them because if the apps are vulnerable, the users are in trouble.

Now, what do you think about public sector and what do you think that the government can do?

In business you have to know that there is what is called “focus”. Our focus as a business is to offer solutions to private businesses, it is easier and faster to deal with the organized private sector. Government isn’t an easy client to deal with, we do not want to be distracted while chasing or engaging with government. We know the political side of it and we are apolitical as a firm. If the government wants to engage us, we are open to consultancy but as per chasing government contracts, we are strictly focused on private sector. Although, we are engaging with NITDA as a DPCO (Data Protection Regulator Organization) that has been certified by NITDA. We want the lawmakers to make law on security of critical public infrastructure. There are couple of experts who are speaking to government here. We believe that it will come out positive.

You changed your corporate logo, why the change?

When we started as a company, we wanted to create an identity but as we have come of age, we tweaked our logo a bit to reflect whom we are as of today. The concept of the circle you find in our logo shows a network of our customers. If you look at it clearly it is not broken, we meant here that our customers are safeguarded and we are supplying the livewire they need to grow. We wanted that to reflect in our logo as a problem-solving organization.

What have you learnt this past 10 years as a CEO of an IT firm?

As a Chief Executive Officer of this organization and the leader of this team, I have learnt a lot of things. As a person, I have learnt to create a platform for people to thrive. We recently created an academy where people are recruited and made to know the rudiments of cybersecurity. We created a platform that will have skills available to the young ones and we trained them at no charges. We are building a platform of security experts. We are also a strong and bonded team; we encourage people to try. Opportunities abound in the market and we encourage people to take advantage of them. I also learnt that you just have to put in your best strategically and see where life take you. I enjoy what I do, it is no longer like a work to me but a lifestyle.

How did you gain market acceptance during your early years as an indigenous firm?

Well, it is mindset which has become cultural where Nigerians believe that foreign firms are better but we met some Nigeria who were of different opinion and they gave us a chance and here we are today. The industry has grown today, we were early birds that came to the industry when it was young or green. The security industry has grown so wide and today a lot of people have joined and the industry has grown. What sets us apart is that we do not only provide products but we provide services. We go to companies with questions like; what have you tried and failed? What are your plans for security? what fears do you nurse and your plan? We help organization answer these and even equip the people with skillset. We help organization to optimize their products. These are few of the things that sets us apart. We appreciate those that gave us a chance during the early days. A good number of Nigerian companies died off due to the acceptability of their products where many business owners think that foreign firms are better. Some companies are built from scratch to survive and we are built to stay in business and provide an environment for many others to thrive and grow.

What do we expect from you in future?

Currently, we are running a platform that allows us to conduct detection and response. It is a managed service that is focused on threat hunting. We want to grow that platform and see many organizations cost effectively enjoy security protection. We want to expand our capacity and give people opportunity to express themselves and contribute to protecting national assets. Cyberspace is getting more dangerous today with software everywhere, we have houses, watches, phones and a whole lot that is powered by software and because software is everywhere, it means that risk is everywhere. We want to stay relevant and ensure that these software are protected because they carry critical information from health, flight, defense, education to financial to others.

Today, technology is looking at artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, metaverse, digital transformation, Holography and many others. We have grown with these new technologies and also improved in our capacity and skillset to support our customers as they consume these technologies. We have grown our market base, personnel, in terms of global technical engagements we have grown also. That is the journey. Someone said if I survive 5 years it means we would be in business for long and thank God we have survived these 5 years and we are ten today. Ten years has been a good experience for us. We have our ups and downs but we keep evolving.