By Martin Ekpeke
The Electronic Payment Providers Association of Nigeria (EPPAN) has voted Mr. Ikechukwu Nnamani, the Chief Executive Officer of Medallion Communications Limited, Nigeria’s premier technology company offering public and private interconnection services through its carrier and data centre neutral exchange points in Lagos, as the ‘Person of the Year’ for 2017.
The umbrella body representing the Nigerian e-payment industry and its body of stakeholders, noted that Ikechukwu was voted ‘Person of the Year’ for 2017, given Medallion’s potentials in transforming the telecommunication industry with cutting edge solutions, that have a wider impact on financial services in Nigeria.
“We recognize Ikechukwu’s leadership in driving forward digital transformation in the country, most of which is impacting positively in Nigeria’s relatively new financial technology services ecosystem. This is why he is EPPAN’s Person of the Year,” EPPAN said in its End-of-End edition E-Payment Review.
Presently, Medallion services enable financial technology in three core areas: Firstly, Meadllion provides early stage knowhow for companies wanting to offer financial technology on how they can interface between the financial technology side and the telecom side. This is done based on Medallion’s experience and knowledge in the area of financial technology.
Secondly, Medallion enables financial technology service providers to use its transmission links and connectivity to do a proof of concepts of what they intend to do before they are given final regulatory approval by the banking regulator or the telecom regulator. Medallion provides the platform and access, with which a lot of the financial technology innovations are tested before they hit the market.
Thirdly is post approval and the day-to-day running and support of those services. A lot of the financial technology service providers have continued to depend on Medallion for the deployment and implementation phase and for post-implementation support.
All that most of the financial technology practitioners have is just the idea and the software they’ve developed for mobile money, but lack the software and the server, which can enable the solution to interconnect or interface with the telcos. This, Medasllion has continued to provide by connecting most of the payment switches to its facility.
