Duplo, an innovative financial operations and payments platform in Africa, continues to help businesses accelerate growth and, in so doing, solidify its position as a provider of comprehensive, institutional-grade financial services. The company has once again reaffirmed its commitment to helping Nigerian businesses thrive amid the ongoing shift in the country’s financial landscape, emphasizing that every business deserves to operate compliantly and risk-free, and that compliance, when handled with the right infrastructure, is not a cost to bear but a competitive advantage to claim.

As evidence of that commitment, Duplo partnered with the Nigerian Revenue Service (NRS) to co-host the Nigerian Business and Finance Leaders Forum 2026, bringing business owners, Chief Financial Officers (CFO), finance leaders, tax professionals, and regulatory stakeholders into the same room to navigate one of the most significant fiscal shifts Nigeria has seen in decades.

Why This Forum Mattered

Nigeria’s most sweeping tax reforms in decades were signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in June 2025 and came into effect on January 1, 2026. The NRS e-invoicing mandate sits at the centre of these changes, requiring businesses to issue and validate invoices in real time through certified digital systems.

For many finance teams, this is more than a regulatory update. It is a structural change to how transactions are recorded, reported, and audited, one that touches supplier relationships, approval workflows, month-end processes, and audit readiness all at once. The forum was designed to close the knowledge gap, giving decision-makers direct access to the people shaping these policies and practical clarity on what readiness actually requires.

Opening the Room: Yele Oyekola, CEO and Co-Founder, Duplo

Duplo’s CEO and co-founder Yele Oyekola opened the forum with a welcome address that set the tone for everything that followed. Speaking to a room full of industry stakeholders, he highlighted that the recent wave of fiscal reforms, including the NRS e-invoicing mandate, is fundamentally reshaping how businesses operate nationwide.

His message was clear: compliance is no longer an administrative obligation. It is a critical function that, when approached strategically, can drive growth, efficiency, and profitability.

 “The businesses that thrive in moments like this are not the ones that wait until change becomes urgent. They are the ones that understand the shift early, prepare their teams, upgrade their systems, and use change as an opportunity to build better, more resilient companies.”

— Yele Oyekola, CEO & Co-Founder, Duplo

The NRS on the Road Ahead: Titus Ayeni

Titus Ayeni, Director of the Customer Service Group, Medium & Emerging Taxpayers Department at the NRS, delivered a keynote address on the roadmap for Nigeria’s evolving fiscal landscape. In his remarks, he outlined the strategic intent behind modern tax administration, focusing on three priorities: transparency, digital readiness, and structural compliance.

His address underscored the need to align corporate innovation with state policy, offering a vital framework for attendees to build more sustainable, responsible, and partnership-driven enterprises. For many in the room, hearing the ‘why’ behind the mandate directly from the NRS was one of the most clarifying parts of the day.

Building a Stronger Revenue System: Olarinde Olufemi Michael

Olarinde Olufemi Michael, Special Adviser on Revenue to the Minister of Finance, brought a national perspective to the room. His message was direct: these reforms are not primarily about collecting more tax; they are about broadening Nigeria’s revenue base through better compliance, modern administration, and a system that works for businesses and government alike.

He walked attendees through the key changes: a unified 4% Development Levy, mandatory TINs, stronger withholding tax enforcement, and tougher penalties for non-compliance, before closing on a point worth sitting with: the success of these reforms depends as much on businesses as it does on government.

The Conversations That Mattered: Panels and Masterclasses

The conversation moved on to a series of panel discussions and masterclasses that tackled the reform from multiple angles, going beyond policy headlines to address the real implementation challenges that finance teams face. Topics covered included:

•   Building Tax-Compliant, Scalable Businesses in Nigeria

•   Understanding the E-Invoicing Regulation and Getting Started

•   Preparing Your Business for Nigeria’s New Tax Environment: Practical Guidance for SMEs and Mid-Market Companies

•   Getting Started with Rev360: Registration, Compliance, and Key Workflows

Each session was structured so that attendees could bring their specific situations to the table, not just absorb information, and leave with concrete next steps.

Voices That Shaped the Day

The forum brought together a distinguished lineup of speakers from across the regulatory and business landscape. Notable guests and speakers at the event included:

•   Olarinde Olufemi Michael, Special Adviser on Revenue to the Minister of Finance

•   Sotonye Ehimiaghe, Strategy Lead, Customer Service Group, NRS

•   Chukwuebuka Onyeyiri, Digital Lead, Customer Service Group, NRS

•   Alberta Umen, Business Technology and Process Improvement Lead, NRS

Together, these voices gave attendees a complete picture of the mandate, from policy intent and digital infrastructure to day-to-day operational execution.

The forum also drew the attention of two of Nigeria’s leading media organisations. Arise TV and BusinessDay were both on the ground, capturing conversations from the floor and reporting on the key messages that emerged from the sessions, a reflection of the significance of the moment for Nigerian businesses and the wider financial community.

As the formal sessions drew to a close, the forum opened into a networking reception, a buffet that kept the room buzzing well past the programme. Business owners, finance teams, tax professionals, and NRS representatives moved freely through the space, picking up conversations the panels had started and asking the questions they needed clarity on. 

The Product Built for This Moment: Duplo’s NRS E-Invoicing

Since its inception, Duplo has emerged as a leading fintech company helping businesses across Africa simplify and automate their financial operations. The NRS e-invoicing mandate made one thing clear: compliance cannot live in a silo. It has to be built into the way a business already works.

Duplo’s NRS e-invoicing feature lets businesses issue and manage NRS-compliant e-invoices directly within the same platform they use for payments, expense approvals, and financial reporting — no separate vendor to onboard, no bespoke integration to build, no new system for your team to learn. Compliance becomes a feature of your workflow, not an additional task on top of it.

And e-invoicing is one part of a broader platform that brings payments, compliance, and financial controls together in a single place. Through Duplo, businesses can:

•   Manage expense approvals and track spend in real time

•   Process local and cross-border payments seamlessly across 160+ countries

•   Generate and validate NRS-compliant e-invoices within existing workflows

•   Reconcile transactions automatically with full audit trails

•   Access real-time financial reporting and analytics

Duplo also provides payment infrastructure and API solutions that enable medium-sized businesses, large enterprises, and technology companies to embed collections, payouts, and financial workflows into their own products and operations. By bringing payments, compliance, and financial controls together in one platform, Duplo helps businesses operate more efficiently, remain compliant, and scale with confidence.

👉Ready to make E-invoicing work for your business?

Explore Duplo’s NRS e-invoicing feature and click here to get started today.