London seeks to bridge cross-border transaction gaps for Nigerian tech startups
By Funmilola Gboteku
The Deputy Mayor of London, Howard Dawber, has identified the ease of opening accounts in London banks as a major hurdle for Nigerian businesses in facilitating seamless cross-border financial transactions.
Dawber, who was part of the London trade mission delegation to Nigeria, disclosed this to newsmen during the delegation’s visit to Lagos.
The deputy mayor acknowledged that while Nigerian tech startups were innovating and creating valuable solutions, this significant hurdle remained a challenge in facilitating seamless cross-border financial transactions.
He underscored London’s commitment to fostering stronger economic partnership with Nigeria and focusing on addressing the challenges faced by Nigerian tech startups in cross-border transactions.
“We know there are some country-specific regulatory hurdles that need to get sorted out, because they are holding people and businesses back.
“A few people have said to me, it has been really difficult to get a bank account. And these are businesses earning millions of dollars, with real good track record that are working in other countries,” Dawber said.
The deputy mayor said he would take the matter up with UK regulators and was optimistic that a technical solution could be found to better assess the risk posed by businesses seeking London bank accounts.
“There’s a real synergy here, with London seeking to learn from Lagos’s rapidly growing tech sector,” Dawber said.
He revealed that London and Partners, the Mayor’s official promotional agency, was actively exploring opportunities to bring successful Nigerian businesses to London and to facilitate British businesses expansion into Nigeria.
“We are aware that Africa faces some challenges in relation to trade, such as cross-border transactions, infrastructure and internal connections, which include physical connections.
“The cross-border payment issue within Africa, as it relates to UK, is something we can work on with the UK government, to ease payment transaction between Nigeria and UK, and therefore, Lagos and London.
“We are very good at rules in London. We like rules, and we stick to them. And that’s great in terms of dependability, but sometimes, when there’s a global rule, we stick to it a little bit more firmly than everybody else,” Dawber noted.
He added that UK regulators might have been implementing an international system too rigidly, noting that there were better ways to do it.
He added that making it easier for businesses to set up in London and conduct cross-border transactions would have opened up many opportunities for Nigerian businesses and benefited both countries’ economies. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Christiana Fadare
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