Abstract
From 2013 to 2023, Nigeria’s information and communication technology (ICT) sector grew from 5.5% of GDP to 16.7%, indicating a threefold rise and affirming its position as a rapidly expanding part of the economy. In this sector, fintech became the dominant subsector, securing over USD 3.5 billion in venture capital. Flutterwave obtained more than USD 500M, Interswitch surpassed USD 300M, Paystack reached USD 200M before being acquired by Stripe, and Paga received over USD 50M. The analysis of ICT's contribution to GDP yielded an almost perfect correlation (R² = 0.988, p < 0.001), while fintech investments showed a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.9% from 2015 to 2021, followed by a decrease of 72% in 2022 and 20% in 2023 as a result of the global contraction in venture capital. A correlation analysis indicated a moderate positive link between funding and transaction volumes (r = 0.592, p = 0.093), where each extra USD 1M of funding corresponded to about 4.6M additional transactions, though this association lacked statistical significance. This research method combines four firm-specific case studies (Flutterwave, Paystack, Interswitch, Paga), secondary data sources (World Bank, NBS, CBInsights), and 24 semi-structured interviews with engineers in the fintech sector. Thematic coding revealed four evolutionary factors: (i) API-first architectures facilitating ecosystem expansion, (ii) resilience engineering tailored for low-connectivity settings, (iii) compliance-by-design in response to regulatory requirements (e.g., CBN, PCI-DSS, NDPR), and (iv) innovation driven by developer communities within the ecosystem. These findings indicate that Nigerian fintech companies developed software systems designed not only for scalability but also for resilience amid infrastructure challenges, significant fraud risk, and regulatory pressure. The results add to the software evolution literature by demonstrating that in developing markets, investment flows, regulatory factors, and ecosystem dynamics play roles as significant as technical choices in determining system trajectories.
Keywords
Software evolution, Fintech, Emerging markets, API-first design, Compliance engineering, Ecosystem innovation
Citations
IRE Journals:
Rahmon Ariyo Badru , Moronkeji Oluwagbotemi Oluwayinka , Idowu Olugbenga Adewumi
"A Decade of Software Evolution in Nigeria: Lessons from the Fintech Ecosystem" Iconic Research And Engineering Journals Volume 9 Issue 2 2025 Page 1213-1223
IEEE:
Rahmon Ariyo Badru , Moronkeji Oluwagbotemi Oluwayinka , Idowu Olugbenga Adewumi
"A Decade of Software Evolution in Nigeria: Lessons from the Fintech Ecosystem" Iconic Research And Engineering Journals, 9(2)
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