The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced that mobile money operators, including fintech firms like OPay, Palmpay, Kuda Bank, and Moniepoint, will resume enrolling new customers “in another couple of months.” On Tuesday, the CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso revealed this at the 295th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja.
Olayemi Cardoso said the CBN has engaged many of the players on the need to strengthen their operations. He said that in a bid to block money laundering and illicit flows, CBN brought up measures that would tighten the sector.
However, the CBN governor said, “I am confident that as time goes on, and hopefully in another couple of months, all these will be something of the past, and then you will see the sector going back into what they’ve been known to do before, but certainly with a very stronger regulatory framework.”
In April, the apex bank stopped fintech companies from onboarding new customers, a move that has truncated the financial inclusion vision for Nigeria by the Cardoso-led CBN and the significant role these fintechs play in making banking services available to all in both urban and rural areas.
The CBN will best believe many fintechs and other actors in the sector will learn from this and carefully monitor all financial activities on their platforms to avoid and eliminate chances of fraud and money laundry
