40 million people have a government ID and no bank account. Olu Akanmu's fix: lock the regulators, the banks and the fintechs in one room and give them 3 months to go and find them. During the cashless crunch, a bank that needed more server capacity had to write a board paper, get approval, source dollars, import the server, clear it through customs and install it. 3 to 4 months. OPay could look at capacity at 9pm, see 70%, and add 40% by morning. Traders in Balogun started telling customers to get OPay so they could be paid. Olu was President and Co-CEO of OPay Nigeria from 2021 to 2023. Before that he was the third Nigerian hired for MTN's commercial launch, ran retail banking at Bank PHB and FCMB, and was CMO at Airtel. He started out as a pharmacist at Glaxo. Today he's academic director of the Lagos Business School Tech-Leap Initiative. In this episode we get into the POS machine that costs 5% of a bank branch, why MTN sent its South African team home one month after launch, Airtel's 3G towers in places with no smartphones, the ₦10 million he'd put in a dollar bond at 30, and why digital payments grew from 22% to 56% while access to credit went from 2% to 6%. Become a Member of The Room (Afropolitan Private Membership) Join our private community for deeper insights and exclusive content: https://www.patreon.com/c/Afropolitanpodcast EPISODE SPONSORS Zobo Money — Zobo is a money transfer app built for Africans in the diaspora. It lets you send money from the US, UK, and Europe to countries like Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, and more. https://www.zobo.money/afropolitan BONUS OFFER: Use code AFROPOLITAN and get a $10 bonus when you sign up, complete your KYC, and send $50 or more to Africa. Hisa — Hisa is an all-investments platform that lets you invest in Nigerian stocks, US stocks and ETFs from one app. https://invite.hisa.co/7fkf/AFROPOLITAN BONUS OFFER: Use code AFROPOLITAN and get your first two trades commission-free. CONVO BY AFROPOLITAN Book 1:1 calls with Africa's boldest thinkers: https://convo.vip/ WHERE TO FIND OLU AKANMU LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olu-akanmu-88280a/ X/Twitter: https://x.com/OluAkanmu Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oluakanmu/ LAGOS BUSINESS SCHOOL TECH-LEAP INITIATIVE Website: https://www.lbs.edu.ng/initiatives/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lbs_techleap/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LBSTech-LeapInitiative AFROPOLITAN Twitter/X: https://x.com/afropolitan Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afropolitanpodcast Newsletter: https://www.afropolitan.io/newsletter Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/Afropolitanpodcast TIMESTAMPS 0:00 40 million people with an ID and no bank account 2:50 The biggest myth about scaling in Africa 3:48 The managers behind the famous founders 6:44 Two founders in: who do you hire next? 8:45 The 21,000 agent ceiling OPay blew past 10:12 How business school teaches you to exclude half the market 12:03 A POS machine is 5% of the cost of a branch 13:44 Selling mobile to a country with 0.4 lines per 100 people 16:48 When 4 out of 5 Nigerians wanted to be on MTN 19:43 Influencer marketing is mercenary marketing 21:33 The Room on Patreon 23:04 Sponsor: Zobo Money 23:49 Sponsor: Hisa 24:58 What winners in telecoms, banking and fintech all do 27:35 Big Brother influencers and the wrong customer 28:38 "We're in the era of Indomie marketing" 30:48 From Glaxo pharmacist to banker 32:25 The evening Bank PHB came for a telco guy 35:00 "Give me two weeks": Googling retail banking 37:10 What foreign companies get wrong about Nigeria 38:05 Airtel's 3G towers in places with no smartphones 40:34 MTN sent the South Africans home a month after launch 42:32 Why Chinese managers show up in Balogun market 44:09 The cashless policy and OPay's 6x growth 46:05 Board papers, customs and a 4 month wait for a server 47:46 Adding 40% capacity overnight 49:42 Eche's two-minute OPay account test 52:46 Redesigning Nigeria's payments stack from scratch 57:28 The banking lobby vs the telco route 59:24 Lock them in a room for 3 months 1:01:29 Is Nigeria hard, or does it punish ignorance? 1:04:25 3 things to know before building wealth in Nigeria 1:06:23 30 years old with ₦10 million: what he'd do 1:08:05 Omoluwabi and the price of a good name 1:11:49 Compounding, excellence and peace of mind 1:14:21 The maths teacher who became a professor 1:16:03 Nigerian tech and the printing press 1:18:48 Rapid fire: beans, telecoms and "too late" 1:22:59 What the second seat learns that founders miss 1:25:01 Why big banks can't build fintechs 1:29:22 Payments grew. Credit didn't. 1:31:08 What credit does for a trader in the market 1:32:56 Who should be in this chair next 1:34:51 Would he go into politics?
