The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has granted Nigeria’s leading Mobile Network Operator (MNO) MTN Nigeria Limited, final approval to provide mobile payment services in the country.
The telco, which gave this hint on Monday in a Note to the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX), confirmed that it had been licensed by the apex bank to operate as a Payment Services Bank (PSB), adding that it will soon begin to offer financial services in accordance with the regulatory authority’s requirements.
It stated: “The date of commencement will be communicated to the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) in accordance with its requirements.”
The MNO stated that the bank would be known as MoMo Payment Service Bank Limited.
The company further clarified that with the PSB licence, it would be offering a bouquet of mobile financial services apart from the conventional person-to-person mobile money transfers, such as lending and bill payments.
A top official of the telco was quoted by news media as saying: “We want to leverage the financial inclusion drive. We plan to give people who don’t have bank accounts or even ATM cards the opportunity to be able to do banking services.
“And we are leveraging on our size. When we have subscribers of over 70 million spread across Nigeria with our infrastructural spread, we are well-positioned to cover everywhere. That’s exactly what we want to achieve”, the official added.
It would be recalled that the regulatory authorities had last November granted approvals in principle to MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa, to operate in mobile banking space and by so doing, bring into the financial inclusion net an estimated 38 million unbanked adult population in the country.
An Abuja-based media and analytics research firm had earlier reported that the unbanked population had at least N26.2 trillion out of the banking system as at last year that could be tracked by banks.
Some financial experts believe that with the licensing of telcos as PSBs, the competition for services provision, especially in the rural areas will become more aggressive.
