Open banking is a tech lifeline and Nigeria can’t afford to delay it by Serah Adelola Adeoti

In Nigeria, the future of innovation is knocking. It’s not hidden behind some abstract policy or hypothetical idea. It’s called open banking, and it’s ready; ready to revolutionize how we build and deliver financial technology that actually works for everyday Nigerians.

But there’s one catch. The green light from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) still hasn’t arrived. This was reiterated in a TechCabal news article published three days ago, October 10, 2024, titled “Open banking is ready for Nigeria, but CBN’s approval stands in the way”.

As a Quality Assurance Engineer and Java Developer who works at the intersection of finance, data, and AI, I’ve seen the inside of Nigerian tech systems. Their strengths and their breaking points. I’ve also seen what happens when developers, testers, and product teams have to operate in the dark, trying to innovate without access to the very data that would make innovation possible. That’s what life without open banking feels like. Like building software with your hands tied.

The irony is, we’re not short on talent. Nigerian developers are among the most resourceful in the world. QA professionals like myself are testing and optimizing products used by thousands. But the missing piece is visibility; clean, secure, permissioned access to financial data that allows us to build better, faster, and more responsibly.

Open banking offers exactly that. It’s not just about allowing fintechs to talk to banks. It’s about creating a shared, regulated foundation where developers can build apps that don’t just mimic global products but improve on them. It’s about creating a tech ecosystem where QA engineers can simulate real-world financial scenarios and edge cases. Not in theory, but in code, with actual data. It’s about allowing entrepreneurs to build among other things payment workflows that understand the reality of Nigerian consumers.

I remember a time working on a product where we needed to verify a user’s transaction history to personalize their loan offer. But because we couldn’t access standardized banking data, we had to build workarounds. Workarounds introduce bugs. Bugs create failure points. Failure points erode trust. That’s the chain reaction we’re dealing with, all because the data we need is locked behind closed doors.

This isn’t just an issue of inconvenience. It’s an issue of trust and user experience. When your financial app keeps breaking because the developers didn’t have the tools to test against real-world scenarios, users stop trusting you. They delete the app. They complain online. In a market like Nigeria, where digital trust is still fragile, one bad experience can cost a startup more than just money, it can cost market credibility.

In the UK, open banking has led to an explosion of innovation. Budgeting apps that help students avoid overdraft fees, AI tools that flag suspicious transactions before they happen, credit tools that use spending behavior to offer fairer rates. Nigeria can achieve the same, but only if we give our developers and testers the infrastructure they need.

The regulatory hesitation often circles back to data privacy concerns. And that’s fair. In a world where data breaches are more common than ever, we must tread carefully. But the answer isn’t to stall, the answer is to regulate intelligently. With the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) and the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) already laying the groundwork, we’re more prepared than we think. What we need now is not more caution, but more courage. The exact kind that turns policy drafts into real, working systems.

The benefits of open banking go beyond just developers and startups. It also levels the playing field for consumers. Suddenly, people who were considered unbanked or underbanked gain access to better services because their financial behaviors can be understood across institutions. Suddenly, a small business owner who previously didn’t qualify for a loan gets approved because her transaction data from a digital wallet tells a different, more hopeful story.

And for QA engineers like me? It means being able to do our jobs with more precision. It means fewer bugs slipping into production. It means being able to validate test cases against real, diverse user patterns instead of hypothetical flows. It means shipping products that work not just in test environments, but in real life.

I often hear people say, “Nigeria’s tech ecosystem is booming.” And it is. But if we’re serious about sustaining that growth, we need to back it with infrastructure, and data is infrastructure. Data is what fuels smarter design and more inclusive innovation. Locking that data away is like pouring concrete on a runway and telling airplanes to take off.

I don’t say this as a policy advocate or a lobbyist. I say this as someone who is on the ground, every day, working to make Nigerian software better, more secure, more trustworthy. The quality of our products is not just about how good our intentions are. It’s about how reliable our systems are. And reliable systems require real, structured, testable data.

This is a call not just to the CBN, but to every stakeholder in Nigeria’s tech and financial sectors: Let’s move. The sandbox is ready. The players are ready. The safeguards are in place. Open banking is not a risk, it’s a remedy. It’s the system upgrade Nigerian tech desperately needs.

Approval isn’t just policy, it’s progress. It’s trust. It’s opportunity. And it’s long overdue.

Adelola (Serah) Adeoti is a dynamic Quality Assurance Engineer and Software Developer with over three years of experience designing, building, and testing impactful technology solutions across AI, healthtech, fintech, and consumer protection. She began her journey in backend development using Java and Spring Boot, but her passion for quality, security, and user trust led her to specialize in test automation and product assurance.

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