 Welcome back. Now, Nigeria's digital economy has experienced significant growth in recent years, fueled by increased internet penetration, mobile technology adoption, and the rise of tech startups. The country has a large population of tech savvy youth who are actively engaging in various digital activities such as e-commerce, mobile payment, and online services. However, Nigeria, like many other nations, has had issues with cyber security attacks and data breaches. Financial loss, reputational harm, and invasions of privacy adjust a few of the serious repercussions that data breaches can cause. In January last year, for instance, a hacker claimed to have accessed the NIN database by the National Identity Management Commission names denied the breach. There have been many other reported breaches like this where the organizations involved often denying them. These all explain why the new data bill is very much what Nigeria needs for its digital economy at this point. Now, joining me right now to discuss further is the CEO of Agripreneur NG Mastermind, Believ Iboi. Many thanks for joining me on Business Insights, Believ. Thank you. Welcome. All right. I so much believe in you, Believ, so we're going to have a wonderful time on the show today. Okay, let us start this way. How significant is this particular load that was just signed by the president? I think the law is very, very significant as it enhances business competitiveness in terms of the business, if you look at it from the business sector, then generally as individuals, it also helps you, makes you aware that you are protected, that your data and everything that you put out every day is very protective from people who can actually take advantage of those data. Okay, so aside from all that you have said, so a lot of people still don't understand specifically what the law aims to protect. Is it just for invasion of privacy or data breaches or cyber security or what exactly? All of that, all of that, and then including us, I think before now, we've not really had an actual law that actually says, please sit about how our data is considered to be protected. And every day we show our data out, even as an employee, your Asia managers have your data as we work on an organization, we pay for a contract, we put our data out every day, we make medical records and everything is out there every day. But there's no actual law in Nigeria beyond the ones that we have, the Shine Protection Act and all of those ones, that actually helps you to protect your data in terms of your normal human data. So I think that is what this law is trying to do right now. By giving you the right to object, whether your data should be used or not, then the right to seek consent if your data is available somewhere and all of those things those are the issues that really make the data protection more significant because all of the rules that the Shine Protection Act and other data rights that have been available before now, the law has been able to now put all of them to perspective and then makes it, makes that protects you. It's only in the internet space, which is the internet of things right now with both things that the internet exposes us. And then at times if you think of something in your head and then you see it on Facebook and all of those things, all of those things are going to drastically reduce right now. That's what made the law more significant. Okay, let's talk economically right now. Sometime last year I said it in passing that the database of the NIN was actually attacked although the NIMC came out to deny that. Would you say that with this new law the issue of cyber threat and hacks should be reduced significantly? It will. It will. For instance, cyber security is one of the elements of the data protection act. Also we also know that Nigeria is I think 47th in the cyber security index and fourth in Africa. That shows that we are really exposed in terms of our data as a country. We are exposed as individuals, we are exposed. Now the issue that during the forest and let me just bring this back during the Esther's period we saw what is the system of this group anonymous where we were pushing out data of what they tell you these are security officers these where they were serving. For us at that time, people might think it was good but if you look at the risk involved in that that if our security officers and their data where they were serving their personal information could be hacked by an organization we don't know where they are, whether they were in Nigeria whether they were outside of Nigeria, we don't know. And then that shows how at risk we are as a country. So for me, this data protection act actually tends to now minimizes all of those things. Yeah, we saw it as a crime but what is the law that persecutes such people if even this was a crime? So there was no law per se as an alternative to persecute such people or put them to justice or the penalties for such things. So those are the economic importance right now. So if you look at, you are doing a business with the international you are sure that you have right almost all of the data laws of Google and all of those things that we are assenting to what we are trying to fill out funds, they are not Nigerian laws they are European laws and all of those laws that we just assented because we want to use those platforms. But right now these are the first time we now have our own and we don't want to say who goes to NISTAR. That is Nigerian information technology agency that is putting these two together right now. Alright, I see me to understand some of the benefits for the whole digital economy because the world has gone global and everything has now been digitized including the way we do things here in Nigeria. When must we think of data protection and the law specifically? When must we think of the data when they go out to browse when they check on the social media and then of course when the interactions with family and friends. What about for the financial and services? A lot of people now do transactions with e-commerce, e-banking and of course e-networking as well. Would you really say that with this new data that Nigerians would not be scared to do more of these financial transactions? For instance, people have complained how their bank accounts and their financial statements have actually been hacked into before now. How strong or how strongly can this cover the financial services sector? Okay, let's look at it from this way. Before now, we had been in a lot of issues with getting, we tried to convince people to use online push-ins and that is why you now see the big e-commerce platform doing own delivery, pay after delivery services. That is the issue that people cannot really save. They don't feel safe enough to leave their data to use their CCV code and all of those their personal financial data online. So this law right now kind of tends to help us to understand that you are protected. Data cannot be sold, cannot be transferred across border or even locally right now. So that is just shows that we are, I want to use the word we are more protected right now as compared to before. Now we know that the digital era data is good and anyone that data is good, right? So anyone that has a good mind, should be able to protect his good mind. I think that is just the way it is right now. So Nigeria with our population is a data good mind globally for anyone who understand what data is all about. So if Nigeria would have huge population, huge access to data and all of those things cannot protect its own good mind as its way. In data form right now, there is a problem. And that is what the law has tried to do. There are some loopholes that people have been to not see in the law and that is the concept of the learning way. It can be amended. But at least it is an attempt to the right direction for the first time for us to have a law that actually not protect our data. This is not human right laws that protect human beings or anything. Our data, our personal data, our information data, our date of birth, our financial data, our records, all of those things that we put out every day. Our phone logs and all of those things that we put out every day. There are now rules that governs their prohibits in company A from selling to company B without consent and all of those things. And for me it is good. So because I can be penalized right now, if I show your personal data, you can see me and all of those things. So that's an individual as a company, there are penalties to be paid and that is the level player right now as compared to before there was nothing like that. All right now, in the wake of a privacy of violation and data approaches, how far do you think this act will help in enhancing customer trust in terms of an e-commerce? Do you think that agents will now want to transact more electronically? Yeah, they should because already there's a lot of common awareness as regards online business, online banking, e-commerce, anything. Now we use the word internet of things and the internet of things concept is because we've seen that everything is now reflected towards or evolving towards the internet, the internet, use of internet and everything within the ecosystem. So with what you know that there's a law that protects you against anything, then you have more confidence to use it to go to use that because you feel protected, you feel secured. Yeah, the issue of cyberbullying and all of those things will probably be 100% I will say 100% because we see a people who always want to change the system. But we can say that we now have more, the law is a little bit more, it's protective right now. Even though we know that safety in terms of data safety is your responsibility anyway. We can make sure that if at all any reason you give your data to an organization, be it e-commerce, be it a bank, be it anyone or look as if it's your data, that person has a responsibility to hold that data in trust. So there's going to be consent. So that's what we now have. The core element of the law is talking about rights to objects. So I have the right to object. I have the right to draw my consent. So if you have my data with you, please remove my data from your database before it goes like that. So that's what the law is talking about right now. So we are now subject as a subject to a data subject. So every Nigerian right now is now a data subject. And as a data subject, you have the right to protect my data, me as a subject, whether you are an individual, you can't just see people's data out there anyhow again and think that nothing will happen. You can't do it with the name of Joke just through that again. People are having skeptisms. I saw something on Twitter where it's all said that the politicians who arrest you should put their data out illegally. Why should you put the political data out illegally in a forced stance? And this is only happening beyond the UNEA and I know that during campaign period, we're going to launch campaigns of coming and all of these things. But beyond that, we see that let's look at beyond the political data that is going to happen. But when that time comes, I'm sure those in charge will know what to do. In terms of the business perspective, in terms of economic goals, in terms of the young developers who are trying to generate good startups. What does it pretend for them? What is the advantage for them? And we can say that for right now we are more secure than ever. People now have the law that secures and that is the concept of data security or data protection. It's about security. It's about control. It's about control and access. And that's who we are right now. All right, as we will round off now, the final question would be what threats do you see that could be attributed to this new law and what can we do to actually stem it? The law has been in existence. But as we put this law out for a long time, it's just now that President Clinton assigned to it. So it's also a new law. It has been out for a long time. So now that it's out, just like when the startup came up, we all alluded to those of us in the startup ecosystem were all happy about it because right now there's now a law that protects startups and gives a guide on how you can do funding equity and all of these things. It's going to help startups it's going to give you access to the fact that you know that anything you generate is real. There's no more data manipulation. So what we can do right now to ensure that the law is sustained is to keep talking about it, to create more advocacy around it, to need to keep creating awareness around it. So the commission to start by the law by this data manipulation law I'm sure that should be one of the things because the law is already in place. Did you take feedback? Yes. Did you take more feedback? What are the new tools in the law that people can pick up on and then majorly awareness and advocacy should be done. Focus it on the people who are going to be using it more because those are going to affect majorly who may never understand even the law itself are those who are running e-commerce. Some people who are trying to do e-commerce businesses, what have you seen that we call them in our needs? Alright, thank you so much. Yes, you have really been very insightful. Thank you. Thank you for all of the useful insights that you have shared. I have been speaking with believe Iboi, he is the CEO of Edupino NG Mastermind. Thank you so much for the useful insight that you shared today. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Alright, as we go on the show today the Association of Mobile Money and Bank in Nigeria Amben has vowed to ensure the implementation of the frameworks put in place by the Central Bank of Nigeria to ensure compliance by members National President of Amben, Victor O'Lodger, flanked by other officials said this while addressing newsman on some issues raised by the House Committee on Banking and Currency with regards to agency banking and financial inclusion. I'll leave you with details of that package and I'll see you again tomorrow. My name is Justin Acadone. Many thanks for watching. The impact of mobile money and agency banking the heat, a crescendo in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown, with active point of sale terminals used by merchants for financial transactions recording about 3.1 trillion in the second quarter of 2021. The increase in the value of pure transactions in Nigeria shows the span and patterns of Nigerians and payment preferences, reaching full-nuke and cranny and by extension deepening the nation's financial inclusion drive. However, there have been complaints of proliferation of agents, lack of KYC to even issues of theft and other fraudulent activities. The Amben executive spoke of a tax force for self-regulation or clarifying other gray areas. Just take one of the case studies. Part of the framework of the CBN is that a mobile money or bank agent should be in a brick-and-mortar location, like an address that is traceable. But what we have today are agents under umbrellas, trees. We have agents who are oking this terminal. Rising from our fifth Amban and National Conference held in Nigeria last year. One of the resolutions that came out of our robust derivations with all critical stakeholders was to begin self-regulation using our tax force. Victor Olojo lamented that the members are rough on the receiving end when it came to counterfeited bills and other fraudulent activities, making a renewed call for radical trade-in. There was a robbery case that happened in the east and somebody's phone was snatched and those bad guys came to Legos, they took the scene and transferred the phones to an agent. And the agent innocently actually served that customer, not knowing that that customer is actually an arm robber. What we find out now is that those merchants now turn their outlay to a mobile money-making outlay and that's not what the PRS is really meant for. And those that give out the PRS know that this is what's going on. The growth in the number of PRS businesses in the country has formed a major source of employment for Nigerians, especially the U.S.