The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed OPay, Palmpay, Kuda Bank, and Moniepoint to stop creating accounts for new customers until further notice over alleged illegal forex dealings.
Industry sources linked the apex bank’s latest move to an ongoing audit of the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) process of the fintechs, which has been under scrutiny in recent months over alleged money laundering and terrorism financing by the operators.
It was reliably gathered that the CBN had summoned some of the heads of fintechs to discuss issues relating to their KYC guidelines compliance levels last week.
Following the order, many customers of the fintechs are expressing their concerns about the safety of their money in the face of the apex bank’s seeming indictment of the operators.
When interviewed, an Abuja-based financial analyst, who simply identified himself as Pastor Collins, told our correspondent that as soon as he got the news about the CBN order, he sent messages to his daughter, who is a customer of one of the fintechs, to “be careful in doing any transactions on the platform of the fintech to protect her money from being lost”
It would be recalled that a Federal High Court in Abuja had earlier approved an interim order requested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to freeze at least 1,146 bank accounts owned by various individuals and companies allegedly involved in illegal foreign exchange transactions.
The Presiding Judge, Justice Emeka Nwite, in a decision on the ex-parte motion presented by the anti-graft agency’s lawyer, Ekele Iheanacho, also approved the commission’s request to complete the investigation within 90 days.
A fintech top player was quoted, while reacting to the apex bank’s directive, as alleging that “up to 90% of the accounts involved in the illegal forex trading are commercial bank accounts while fintech accounts were just 10% and why has the CBN not asked the banks to stop onboarding new customers?
“We have a general problem, coming for fintechs is just like looking at the easy prey. “In terms of KYC, the fintechs are doing better than the banks, but all eyes seem to be on the fintechs whenever the issue of KYC occurs”, the source added.
