A Review of Digital Innovations and their Associated Risks: Implications for Agribusiness Development in Nigeria

Financial technology (Fintech) is changing the world of finance for consumers in a variety of ways. Leveraging on digital tools like mobile phones, internet, smart cards, POS devices, etc., business models have experienced remarkable transformations. These transformations have practical impacts on different sectors of the economy; agriculture inclusive. This paper is a review of recent literature on digital innovations and their associated risks relative to the agro-entrepreneur. It noted that Digital Financial Services (DFS), also known as Mobile Financial Services (MFS) have positive implications for financial inclusion, agricultural value chain financing, and women empowerment among other things. However, in Nigeria these positive implications have not been felt by the majority of the masses. It is still on record that about 40 percent of the adult population in this country is financially excluded despite the many efforts of the apex bank to achieve financial inclusion. There is no gain saying the fact that majority of this financially excluded population are rural dwellers and as such are majorly engaged with farming and other agricultural activities. Again, findings indicate that there is no context sensitive package that can deliver finance to agro-entrepreneurs in a disruptive way as seen in Kenya, Uganda and Ghana. This paper will serve as a policy instrument to the government, private investors, Development Finance Institutions, DFIs, MNOs, fintech companies, researchers, and policy makers. It is a call for a collaborative consideration on how to capture the many potential benefits of DFS in agriculture, not forgetting its associated risks, in a bid to create a trade competitive agribusiness ecosystem.