The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Wednesday aligned its position with the Corporate Affairs Commission’s (CAC’s) that all agents within the Fintech mobile payment cluster were under obligation to register their businesses.
The CAC had previously directed that all Fintechs must register with the CAC before commencing business in line with the express provisions of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, CAMA 2020.
The apex bank’s stance on the registration of all Fintechs operating in the country was expressed by the CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, during a meeting with the Chief Executive Officers of the CAC, SEC, NDIC, PENCOM, FRC, and attended by all the CBN’s Deputy Governors held at the apex bank’s headquarters in Abuja.
The CAC Registrar-General, Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, had earlier submitted that Section 863(1) of CAMA 2020 provides that “A person or association of persons shall not carry on business in Nigeria as a company, limited liability partnership, limited partnership, or under a business name without being registered under the Act.
This is even as he pointed out that Section 863 (2) further made it a criminal offence punishable with a 200,000 Naira daily fine for failure to comply with Section 863 (1).
Magaji strongly urged the CBN to advise all banks and mobile money operators to inform their agents that have not registered any form of business entity with the Commission to do so within 2 months to avoid the criminal sanctions contained in Section 863(2) of CAMA 2020.
