eNNovators examines mobile phone benefits to insurers

As Nigeria prepares to celebrate 10 years of GSM revolution in few months, financialtechnology eNNovators Breakfast (FTeB), a quarterly breakfast event designed for Dreamers-Drivers and Doers (3Ds) of technology business in financial services industry across Africa, has announced that the June edition of the knowledge acquisition event will examine the relevance of cellular technology to the insurance industry in Nigeria.

According to editor-in-chief of financialtechnology magazine, Mr. Sola Fanawopo, FTeB offers opportunity for networking and strategic planning. Every quarter, leading industry thought leaders and opinion molders meet in an intimate and relaxed environment to disseminate cogent information on topical issues, create new relationships and promote their businesses.

The first edition of the event held on March 29 focused on harmonizing SIM registration and mobile payment KYC for secure mobile payment service in Nigeria. Representative of director of Banking and Payments System, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Abayomi Atoloye and the Director General of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Dr. Chris Onyemenam delivered position papers.

Fanawopo informed that the second edition with the theme “What do 95 million Active Mobile Telephone Lines Mean for Insurers in Nigeria?” would hold in Lagos at the Prestigious Oriental Hotel, Lekki-Epe road on June 28, 2011.

Speaking on the theme for the second edition, he said that mobile telephone has dramatically changed the way Nigerians conduct businesses. “Businesses are investing in innovations to keep up to date with changing trends in consumer behaviours. Insurance industry cannot afford to lag behind. The impact of mobility on insurance operations is huge such that insurers will have to adapt to the increasingly prevalent use of mobile devices,” he said.

He said insurance companies in Nigeria should invest in mobile channels in order to service their customer base and mobile technology presents the insurance industry with an opportunity to meet two
familiar and linked challenges: “how to adopt new technology and market to huge based of young customers.”

Handset owners constitute an extensive technology infrastructure that many insurers are not pursuing aggressively enough. However, the decision to invest in mobility requires a complex subset of decisions
regarding competing and complementary technologies.

For example, he offered, insurers should choose whether to focus on optimizing their existing websites for use on mobile devices or to develop applications for specific mobile operating systems, such as
the iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7.

He said that the event would address all the issues around the impact of mobility in insurance services. The event would be case study-led, which include the over 95 million mobile phones in Nigeria, mobile

insurance services in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ghana, and the available options for Mobile insurance services in Africa.

The event would also examine the roles of MNOs, insurers, banks, switching firms and mobile money operators’ provision of mobile insurance services, and how to make Nigerians to buy life insurance
policies and the place of regulations in the use of mobile devices to provide insurance services.

Remmy Nweke
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