Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of FMDQ Group Plc, Zeal Akaraiwe, has mentioned that the total advantages of Africa’s rising cross-border cost infrastructure rely on items and companies shifting as freely throughout the continent’s borders.
Akaraiwe took the helm at FMDQ in June after greater than 20 years in monetary markets, derivatives and threat advisory throughout Nigeria, Zambia and the United Kingdom.
Akaraiwe spoke on the S&P Global Africa Summit 2026 in a two-day gathering in Lagos themed, ‘Turning West Africa’s Potential into Reality.’
His panel, ‘Beyond Banking: Fintech, Digital Assets and the Future of Capital Flows in Africa,’ was moderated by Luigi Motti, Head of Financial Institutions Ratings, EMEA, at S&P Global Ratings.
The different panellists have been Serah Makka, Executive Director for Africa at ONE Campaign; Muyiwa Oni, Head of Equity Research at Stanbic IBTC; Ugo Nwaghodoh, Executive Director at United Bank for Africa; Niyi Toluwalope, Chief Executive Officer of eTranzact; and Jay Alabraba, Co-founder and Director of Business Development at Paga.
On digital property, Akaraiwe described a query that has largely been settled. “Virtual assets,” he mentioned, “are here to stay. What remains is how to integrate them.”
Virtual property, he mentioned, now have to be introduced “deeply into the system” in order that they thrive “alongside the traditional mechanisms”. FMDQ Group operates trade, clearing and depository infrastructure throughout Nigeria’s debt capital, international trade, derivatives and fairness markets.
Turning to trade controls, Akaraiwe pointed to trade controls as one which does important work. In his phrases, the regime “protects our economic environment from certain types of abuses that we cannot afford to have”.
He nonetheless noticed room for change. Across the continent, he noticed, nations are starting to just accept that these regimes could possibly be eased, a shift that will permit capital to circulate “slightly more freely”.
Freer capital, nevertheless, is just a part of the image. For the area, Akaraiwe argued, the motion of products and companies issues extra.
“Much more important than the flow of capital is the actual flow of goods and services,” he mentioned. “Because there is no point in having a very sophisticated payment infrastructure cross-border when the actual goods cannot cross the border.”
The biggest alternative, in his view, lies in pairing these shifts with funding in processing Africa’s uncooked supplies on the continent.
“If those things are combined with the building of processing capacity for raw materials in Africa, that’s going to be a massive game changer,” he mentioned.
