Nigeria to Allow More Payment Providers to Boost Banking Access

TOPE ALAKE

Nigeria’s central bank plans to license more payment providers in an effort to improve the country’s financial-inclusion rate to 80% by the end of next year from about 60%.

“The provision of licenses to several players will help support innovation and competition as all parties work to increase their customer base,” Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele said in a speech in Abuja on Friday. “Nigerians in underserved locations will have access to cost effective payment services, cash-in and cash-out facilities, and savings products.”

The measures come as lenders in Africa’s most populous country of almost 200 million people make a push into retail banking to ward off potential competition from mobile-network operators. Nigeria is still a laggard when it comes to the rest of the continent in offering mobile banking, awarding its first license in July.

The central bank has provided so-called shared-agent and payment-bank licenses to three companies in 2019, Emefiele said.

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG