Browsing by Author "Nghipandua, Valentina"

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    Financial Technology in the Namibian financial market space: Regulation and supervision
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021-10) Nghipandua, Valentina; Godspower-Akpomiemie, Euphemia
    Innovation in financial technology, referred to as “FinTech” is rapidly transforming the global financial sector. In achieving Namibia’s strategy to enhance access to the level of financial inclusion in Namibia, FinTech plays a vital role in achieving financial inclusion because it offers consumers, businesses and governments convenience, efficiency and security to financial products. However, FinTech brings risks to both consumers and the financial system. This study focuses on the benefits of financial innovations in the Namibian financial sector, the objective of regulation and supervision of FinTech, as well as the best approach to employ to successfully regulate and supervise the institutions and products to achieve consumer protection and financial stability. Given the novelty of FinTech in academic research and that the research problem has not been sufficiently studied in the Namibian context, a qualitative research design is adopted. In depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted in English with different stakeholders from the financial services industry. The literature review and research questions provided sufficient information to develop appropriate interview questions. The responses to interview questions were analysed and summarised and it was found that FinTech start-ups are growing at a very slow pace in the Namibian space and that limitations in laws, lack of IT infrastructure and the small population size are some of the factors hindering FinTech start-ups in Namibia. Overall, there is a perception that although FinTech start-ups exist in Namibia, they exist mostly in the banking space and they are highly unlikely to take over financial institutions. It is found that there is likely to be a more collaborative approach between financial institutions and FinTech start-ups.