WAs for African Money Markets and SMEs | Abidemi Ademola @Web3LagosCon

GMGM Good morning everyone. So, um a kind of a traditional person in Web3. Who is Abiodun Adimola? Uh a finance professional and an associate chartered accountant who also held ACI dealing certificate from the Financial Market Association. He brings hands-on experience and from one of Nigeria's leading banks to BitSwap's approach to real-world assets.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about the real-world assets, tokenization of the real-world assets. The world has gone beyond Web3 standing in um isolation. We have to look at what is happening in traditional finance. How can we bring in what is happening in traditional finance to Web3?

Or how can we bridge the gap that already exists between Web3 and traditional finance? Now, let's look at this thing. Nigeria just opened its uh best-kept youth instrument. What do I mean by that? Does anyone here knows what we mean by OMO bill?

Do you have an idea of T-bills? Treasury bills? What about bond? Now, there is a part of that treasury bill that is not open to you and I. But then, the Central Bank of Nigeria on August 12th just opened that yield.

When the treasury bills was doing around 15 to 16% in term of discount, OMO bill was doing 20-21%, but it's not available to you and I. But on the 12th of August, there was a memo from the Central Bank of Nigeria which made it open to all the retail investor. The very first um auction that was done was over subscribed by almost 7.9 x. Now, when we are talking in terms of x, I will still tell you what the actual value of those are over subscription is so that we can know what we are missing out.

There was another auction that was done yesterday and the one done yesterday was also over subscribed by 4 x. CBN wants to issue 1 trillion naira in OMO bill. But we have over subscription of 4 trillion naira. And you and I are not involved. Why?

So, moving on. In the news at the first retail of our OMO auction in August August 13th, 2026, we have 4.9 trillion naira. Then, okay, over subscribed by 13.2 x.

Apologies for that. While the yield was approximately 20%. You know, when you are still looking for that moon coin for that moon coin that will push you 5 x, 10 x, those in traditional finance, they are somewhere quietly making 20% of their money at a risk-free. I have to add that. Zero risk.

Relatively zero risk. Then, what is happening in the global markets? This is not limited to Nigeria alone. The global market is already chasing this yield. The foreign portfolio investment that we have in Nigeria for 2024 was 8.

3 billion dollar. This is in dollar. Why as at 2025, we have 19.74 billion dollar. In the Q1 of 2026, we have 9.

8. And if you analyze that, you are at 39.4 billion in foreign portfolio investment. That's the of FPI. Meaning hedge funds in US, hedge funds in um London, they are bringing their money here to invest in Nigeria.

Why are they doing that? Let me use a typical example. Japan just raised their lending rate to 1%. For like 20 years, it has been at approximately less than 1%. And what happened?

An hedge fund uh can go to Japan, borrow at 1%, take the money all the way from Japan to the west, which is the US or the UK, and make 4 to 6% on that money at zero risk. Cuz the US treasury bill was also at 5 to 6%. Now, if this is already happening in the global market, now look at Nigeria where you can actually make up to 20% at risk-free. Where do you think the money will be coming to very next? It will come into Nigeria.

In fact, the money is already in Nigeria cuz the OMO bill was oversubscribed as at yesterday. The same logic that I applied between Japan and um the west is also what we have that applies to us in emerging markets. When I talk about emerging markets, I'm talking about um the Middle East, we're talking about Asia, we're talking about Africa. In fact, Africa is at the bottom of the food chain when you're talking of emerging markets. But, the same logic that applies to the west, borrowing from Japan at 1% and investing in the US market at 4 to 6% at almost no risk is applicable.

But what is the problem is that the access is broken. An investor is looking at how can I easily bring my money in to Nigeria and how can I easily take that money out of Nigeria? Apart from that, what are the other risk that I'm going to face? One of that risk is the exchange rate risk. If I'm bringing in 1 billion uh if I'm bringing in 1 million naira and the exchange rate in January, I cannot reliably confirm what the exchange rate will be by December, then I might eventually lose that money if I'm not careful.

But when you look at our foreign exchange now, it's close to being stable. That volatility that you saw that time that by the time you wake up the following day, there's 50 naira added to naira, it's not happening currently. We have the local local banking rails, we have the geographic gatekeeping. Those that knows about it are not telling you about it. You might want to know that some of the people that are so close to you, that community where you're always discussing, some of them knows about this thing.

But are they telling us? No. Now, what are we trying to achieve? You know, I mentioned one thing that the same logic that applied to the West is what applied to emerging markets, but there's a major problem. The access to that market is broken in emerging markets and that's one of the reason why the founder of BitSika Protocol in person of Kola Owolabi Olawale is currently on her way to Russia to have the same discussion that I'm having here with those people over there because they are part of the emerging market.

How easy can someone from the US bring their money or take their money to Russia, make money from Russia, and be able to expatriate their money back to to US. Biswap is a is Bissel protocol reward asset exchange. A place where you can mint, trade, and earn from tokenized businesses and sovereign instruments open to you any investor with a wallet. I'm sure you know how easy it is in this current um uh current world to just have a wallet. You can just do it in in 2 minutes.

So, if you can 2 minutes is too far, right? Yeah, let's say in 30 seconds. So, if you can do create a wallet in 30 seconds, you should be able to access this market also in that 30 seconds. And that's what we are bringing to the market. You have the real asset, you have they are tokenized on Biswap, and they are available not just in Nigeria, but to global investors, which means you joining, you are being part of the future.

There are just three ways for you and I and also for the global investors to earn. And what are those three ways? Number one, we have the Bizz Yield. The Nigerian market, about 54% of our GDP makes up uh the informal market makes up about 54% of Nigerian GDP as of today, which means when you are taking a walk around to see Echo Market, you should bear in mind that those traders contribute about 54% of our GDP. So, you should pay some like you should give them some respect for doing that.

They are part of those that keep the um economy going. The but what we are trying to do here, we are trying to bring such businesses in the informal market, we are They're to bring them on chain. In that a real estate investor that wants to raise money to finance their project, they can come on B swap tokenize that project that they are doing. And what do you get for financing such? They give you part of their revenue.

Now, when you're talking to an accountant, an accountant is more interested in the revenue and at the same time interested in the profit. But why are they more interested in the revenue? Because that's the top line. No expenses is being accounted for. But you're making money out of it.

So, before they even account for their expenses, you're getting your return. The second one is the Bizz credit backed by Bizz market vetted SME credit pool. Um MoneyPoint released something for their market survey in 2020 for 2025 and they said they've disbursed about 1 trillion in loan to the informal market. They are not disbursing it to Dangote, they are not disbursing it to Boua, they are disbursing it to the woman selling stores by the roadside. They are disbursing it to the market women.

I mean, in my own word, I would say those are the one that are actually keeping the economy. Those are the people they are financing and we are doing the same thing. The only difference is we are doing it on chain, which you already have access to. And the last part is Bizz bond, which is backed by government treasuries and sovereign instrument. Do you have anyone here that believes that Nigerian government can go bankrupt?

Do you believe that's possible? For them to go bankrupt, they would rather do what? Print more money. And that's why we always use any instrument by the government to mean risk-free. Because if it is for them to go bankrupt, they would rather print more money.

So, these are the three ways that we have. But what we are trying to do in real essence of it is to make sure that you and I have access to that same thing that the West is enjoying. We are trying to bring businesses. We are trying to bring real world assets that you and I can see. We are trying to bring them on chain.

And I believe we should be a part of it. Thank you very much.

[applause]