Nigerian fintech market is almost saturated – Darlington Onyeagoro 

The Chief Executive Officer of Aladdin Digital, Mr. Darlington Onyeagoro, has said that the fintech space in Nigeria is getting almost saturated as there are now many players doing the same thing. 

Onyeagoro, who stated this during Business Half Hour, a Nairametrics radio show on Classic FM, said the battlefield for Nigerian fintechs is no longer Nigeria but Africa.

With this, he said Aladdin, which pioneered social commerce banking in Nigeria, is now pivoting to be a global payment infrastructure provider for Africa. 

According to Onyeagoro, Aladdin started as a digital bank in 2020 without raising funds but with the support of friends and family.

He noted that to start the same business today will require millions of dollars in investment to gain recognition in the market as there are now many players.   

Describing the fintech space in Nigeria as the red ocean, the Aladdin CEO said that any newcomer into the market must either come with something unique and disruptive or with a lot of funds to drive visibility in the market.  

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Speaking on the company’s new focus of facilitating payments across Africa, Onyeagoro said the key to African payment is wallet-to-wallet because the average cost of sending money within Africa is currently too high at 15%.  

Onyeagoro added that onboarding across Africa on the wallet system will make payments easier and cheaper across the continent.

He noted that payments via wallet are easier because the system is able to convert from one country’s currency to another within the same ecosystem.