Trust as Digital Finance Missing Link

As digital finance reshapes economies and expands financial inclusion, industry leaders argue that technology alone is no longer enough. They contend that trust—built on security, transparency and reliability—will ultimately determine whether the next wave of digital innovation delivers sustainable growth and broad-based adoption, writes Nume Ekeghe

For more than two decades, Nigeria’s financial sector has pursued a singular ambition: expanding access to financial services.

From the banking consolidation era of the mid-2000s to the introduction of the Bank Verification Number (BVN), instant payments, agent banking, mobile money, fintech innovation, digital identity and, more recently, artificial intelligence-driven financial services, the country’s financial ecosystem has undergone one of the most remarkable transformations on the African continent.

 The numbers underscore that progress. Nigeria today operates one of Africa’s largest digital payments ecosystems, with electronic payment transactions running into over N3 quadrillion annually, billions of instant payment transactions processed every year, and one of the continent’s fastest-growing fintech industries.

Digital channels have become the primary means through which millions of Nigerians save, transfer money, access credit and conduct business.

On paper, financial inclusion has never looked stronger. Yet, beneath these achievements lies an uncomfortable contradiction.

For every successful transfer completed in seconds, there is another customer waiting days for a failed transaction to be reversed. For every digital lending platform expanding access to credit, there are growing concerns over data privacy, algorithmic decision-making and consumer protection. Fraud continues to evolve alongside innovation, while customer confidence is often tested not by the sophistication of technology but by how institutions respond when things go wrong.

Nigeria has built impressive digital financial infrastructure. The next challenge is ensuring that Nigerians trust it.

That was the central argument of Trust Architecture in Platform-led Finance, a policy framework report launched by Bridgefort in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Innovation Centre, Lagos.

The Bridgforte Centre for Global Impact is an independent policy research and convening institution dedicated to strengthening trusted, resilient and inclusive financial systems across Africa and the Global South. Working at the intersection of research, policy and practice, it addresses emerging governance questions, convenes senior leaders across institutional boundaries and develops practical frameworks that help institutions navigate major transitions.

Rather than focusing on expanding access, the new report argues that the next frontier of financial inclusion is confidence—confidence that digital platforms will work reliably, institutions will resolve disputes fairly, regulators will protect consumers and technology will operate transparently.

It was a timely intervention, particularly as Nigeria accelerates digital payments, open banking and artificial intelligence adoption across financial services.

Beyond Access

Launching the report, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Founder of Bridgefort, Aishah Ahmad, argued that the country’s financial inclusion agenda has entered a new phase.

 “The discussion begins with a very simple observation: financial inclusion has largely solved the problem of access. What remains now is for us to determine whether confidence can keep pace with access,” she said.

That observation marks an important shift in thinking. For years, policymakers measured success by counting new bank accounts, expanding payment infrastructure and increasing transaction volumes. These remain important metrics. However, they no longer capture the quality of the financial experience.

Consumers may now have unprecedented access to digital finance, but confidence is far more fragile. One unresolved failed transaction, one unexplained account restriction or one poor customer service experience can erase years of trust.

The Bridgefort report argues that this is because digital finance has fundamentally changed the way trust is created.

In the traditional banking model, customers dealt almost exclusively with a single institution.

Today, however, a simple transfer may involve multiple commercial banks, fintechs, payment switches, telecommunications infrastructure, identity verification systems and regulatory oversight, all operating simultaneously behind the scenes.

Customers, however, experience only one transaction.

As Ahmad explained: “Customers do not experience individual institutions; they experience the financial system as a collective. Trust is created in the handoffs between institutions.”

That insight represents one of the report’s most significant contributions. Trust is no longer built within individual institutions alone; it emerges or collapses at the intersections where institutions interact.

Confidence as Economic Infrastructure

The report’s central argument received strong support from Deputy Governor and Chief Executive Officer of the Prudential Authority at the South African Reserve Bank, Nomfundo Tshazibana, who delivered the keynote address.

Drawing on the work of Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow, she argued that confidence should no longer be regarded merely as an intangible concept but as a form of economic infrastructure.

 “As Kenneth Arrow reminded us, almost every commercial transaction contains an element of trust. In finance, that insight is even sharper because money, credit and promises all depend on confidence over time,” she said.

 She continued: “This is why confidence is not just a soft infrastructure; it is an economic infrastructure.”

Infrastructure is typically associated with roads, ports, power plants and telecommunications networks. Yet, financial systems depend equally on invisible infrastructure confidence.

“Households save because they believe their money will retain value, businesses invest because they trust contracts will be honoured, banks lend because risks can be measured and managed, investors allocate capital because institutions are credible and without confidence, these relationships begin to weaken,” she added.

According to Tshazibana, financial stability should therefore be viewed not merely as a regulatory objective but as a development imperative.

“It matters because financial stability is not simply a regulatory objective. It is a development objective.”

In an era defined by artificial intelligence, climate transition and geopolitical uncertainty, she argued, regulators face the difficult task of protecting trust while allowing innovation to flourish.

Why Technology Alone Is Not Enough

One of the report’s more surprising findings is that trust failures are rarely caused by technology itself. Instead, consumers judge financial systems primarily by how institutions behave when systems fail.

A digital platform may process millions of successful transactions daily, but public confidence can quickly erode if failed transactions remain unresolved or customer complaints are ignored.

The implication is significant. Financial institutions often devote enormous resources to improving technology, while investing comparatively less in customer recourse, dispute resolution and inter-institutional coordination.

The report further argues that operational resilience not technological sophistication is increasingly the real measure of trust. In other words, customers remember failures far longer than they remember seamless transactions.

Identity Beyond Compliance

Another important contribution of the report is its treatment of digital identity. Historically, identity has largely been viewed as a compliance requirement designed to satisfy Know-Your-Customer (KYC) obligations.

Bridgefort argues that this approach is no longer sufficient, they noted that Identity should instead be regarded as national trust infrastructure. Furthermore, it reiterates that reliable identity systems reduce fraud, improve consumer protection, facilitate interoperability and create greater accountability across institutions.

Without trusted identity, trust itself becomes fragmented.

When Fraudsters Collaborate Better Than Banks

Perhaps the most striking observation during the event came from Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sparkle, Uzoma Dozie. Commenting on ecosystem collaboration, he argued that financial institutions continue to operate within information silos despite facing increasingly organised cyber threats.

“The real organised sector today is actually the cybercriminals because they share information. Banks don’t share information. Because we don’t share information and we’re not transparent, we haven’t been able to scale trust.”

His comments reflect another major finding of the report that financial institutions often collaborate less effectively than the fraud networks targeting them.

As digital fraud becomes increasingly sophisticated, isolated institutional responses are unlikely to succeed. He argued that trust depends upon coordinated intelligence sharing, interoperable systems and collective accountability.

Dozie believes open banking offers part of the solution.

“Today, sharing is power,” he said.

 According to him, open banking shifts ownership of financial data away from institutions and towards customers, encouraging competition, improving innovation and expanding access to tailored financial products.

“Open banking is going to be an accelerator. It’s actually going to open up Nigeria,” Dozie added.

 The report stated: “Financial institutions collaborate less effectively than the fraud networks targeting them. This is a structural failure, not a moral one. Structured polling confirmed this pattern: institutional mistrust and competitive incentives ranked above legal, regulatory, and technological barriers.

“Yet, Nigeria’s own track record demonstrates that when the stakes are systemic, institutions have chosen to build together.”

The Five Pillars of Trust

To address these challenges, the report introduces what it describes as the Bridgefort Trust Architecture Framework. It rests on five interconnected pillars. 

It states: “The framework identifies five interdependent pillars of systemic confidence: Infrastructure Integrity, Institutional Accountability, Technology Governance, Ecosystem Coordination, and Cultural Confidence.

“Together, these pillars explain how confidence in digital financial systems is shaped not only by the performance of individual institutions, but also by the infrastructure, governance, and coordination arrangements that connect them.

“The framework therefore provides a system-level lens, operating across three relational axes – Consumer to Institution, Institution to Institution, and Institution to Regulator – for understanding how trust is produced, and where it breaks down, within platform-led financial systems.”

The Next Phase of Nigeria’s Financial Story

Nigeria’s digital finance story has largely been one of remarkable innovation. Having pioneered instant payments in Africa, built one of the continent’s most vibrant fintech sectors and continues to expand digital financial access at impressive speed.

Yet the next chapter may prove even more difficult. Building payment rails was largely an engineering challenge.

Building trust is an institutional one as it requires better governance, stronger consumer protection, faster dispute resolution, greater transparency, responsible artificial intelligence, interoperable identity systems and deeper collaboration among institutions that have traditionally operated in silos.

The Bridgefort report offers no illusion that trust can be engineered overnight. Instead, it argues that confidence must be deliberately designed into financial systems through rules, incentives, accountability and cooperation.

As Nigeria pursues its ambition of becoming Africa’s leading digital economy, that lesson may prove decisive. Nigeria has already built the rails for digital finance. Its next and perhaps most important task is ensuring that every Nigerian is willing to travel on them.