“Nigeria is attempting to push the usage of its central bank digital currency eNaira by capping the amount users can withdraw from ATMs at $45 per day and $225 per week. If users or businesses exceed that amount, they have to pay a 5% or 10% fee respectively, according to a report at Coin Telegraph. The government of Nigeria has struggled to get citizens to adopt the ENaira since its introduction on Oct. 25, 2021. Currently less than 0.5% of the population has used the currency. Previously, the maximum daily withdrawal amounts were $338 for individuals and $1,128 for businesses. “Customers should be encouraged to use alternative channels (Internet banking, mobile banking apps, USSD, cards/POS, eNaira etc.) to conduct their banking transactions,” Haruna Mustafa, director of banking supervision, Nigeria, told the news outlet.”

“Bitt joins the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in celebrating the one-year anniversary of the eNaira. Since its launch on 25 October 2021, citizens and residents of Nigeria were the first on the continent of Africa to be able to use a legal tender digital currency for their daily financial transactions.  Bitt and the CBN continue to work diligently to roll-out eNaira updates in adherence with the CBN’s published roadmap. The implementation plan identifies three phases. The project roll-out is currently in phase two. In addition to onboarding banked customers and merchants, and integrating and optimizing core banking systems to facilitate transactions throughout the existing eNaira ecosystem, other major achievements include:    Unbanked customer onboarding and transactions via USSD ; Integrations with the National Payment Service for QR functionality and wholesale funds transfer (RTGS) ; Onboarding of IMTOs and integration of DCMS to exchange Naira;  Multi-lingual support for mobile applications and USSD SMS Integration with CBN’s; SMS gateway service Security hardening . The next phases will include….”

“Africa has the youngest population in the world. Yet, access to the internet remains a huge problem for millions of people on the continent. While this could be attributed to the region’s high cost of internet access, the lack of funds to purchase modern, internet-enabled phones poses a tougher challenge to many Africans.  MTN, one of Nigeria’s leading telecommunication companies, is now attempting to solve this problem. Through its latest partnership with Intelligra, a pioneering smartphone financing company in Nigeria, the telco is providing its customers access to modern, internet-enabled phones through a flexible buy-now-pay-later scheme.  This buy-now-pay-later scheme enables existing MTN customers to obtain smartphones and pay the cost within 6-12 months. According to MTN, the overarching purpose of pioneering a telco-led BNPL product in Nigeria goes beyond profit-making. Their goal is to connect more Nigerians to the internet and create a Nigeria where people are not restricted from achieving their dreams due to a lack of internet access.”

“PalmPay, a fintech innovator aiming to make digital payment more accessible and flexible, announced that it has reached 10 million users in Nigeria. This represents a doubling in its user base within just six months and puts its customer numbers in the same league as major institutions only 3 years after the company launched in the market. The fintech, which operates under a Mobile Money Operator license from the Central Bank of Nigeria, has gained significant traction with its payment’s app and nationwide agency banking network. Its proposition of instant financial account creation, fee-free bank transfers and cashback rewards on airtime and bill payments has appealed to Millennial and Gen-Z consumers, who are looking for more affordable banking options and prefer the convenience of a digital-first service.”

“The value of mobile money transactions in Nigeria increased by 3,454.46 per cent (N4.86tn) in the first four months of 2022 from (N136.85bn) in the corresponding period of 2019, as citizens continue to embrace digital payments as part of a measure to contain the spread of Covid-19. According to data provided by the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), the number of telecommunication subscribers in the nation recorded a 13.98 per cent jump to (201.31 million) in the corresponding month of 2022 from (176.62 million) in April 2019. Similarly, the report noted that mobile devices drove payment in 2020, accounting for 43 per cent of total transactions in 2020, with 35 per cent of transactions carried out via USSD and 78 per cent of total transfer transactions.”

“Online payments reached record heights in Nigeria in the third quarter of 2020, when the value of transactions increased to $116 billion from $68.3 billion in the same period in 2019. But this welcome jump came with a staggering increase in financial fraud. Between January and September 2020, fraudsters made over 46,000 attempts on customer accounts, three times the level for the same period the year before. 91% of those attempts succeeded. In the 9 months between January and September 2020, fraudsters stole 5 billion naira ($12 million) from customer accounts (pdf), the equivalent of 173,000 Nigerian workers’ minimum wage for a month.”

“Nigerian banking regulators have released new guidelines governing the services offered by the country’s mobile money operators (MMO). It is the first update in six years and is meant to address the sweeping changes seen since 2015. Ibrahim Moshood, an associate with Centurion Law Group , said the rules govern two types of operations, the bank-led ones that either operate alone or with other banks, and the non-bank organizations who are licensed to complete MMO services. These entities also use deposit money banks and settlement banks.”

“The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has released Regulatory Guidelines and Framework for Mobile Money Services in the country to create an enabling environment for orderly introduction and management of the services. The guidelines stated that the  Mobile Money Operators (MMOs) shall not carry out the following activities: Grant any form of loans, advances and guarantees (directly or indirectly); Accept foreign currency deposits; Deal in the foreign exchange market except as prescribed in Section 4.1 (ii & iii) of the extant Guidelines for Licensing and Regulation of Payment Service Banks in Nigeria; Insurance underwriting;  Accept any closed scheme electronic value (e.g. airtime) as a form of deposit or payment; Establish any subsidiary; Undertake any other transaction which is not prescribed by these Guidelines; And any other activities that may be prohibited by the CBN.”

“Nigeria continued to witness steady growth in electronic transactions in the first quarter of 2021. According to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) , Nigeria processed ₦58.8 trillion ($155 billion) worth of electronic transactions between January and March 2021. Launched in 2011, the NIBSS is a consortium of all Nigeria’s licensed banks and the Central Bank of Nigeria.”

“For small and mid-sized restaurants in Nigeria and most of Africa, food procurement can be a complex process to manage. The system is such that a business can easily run out of money or have considerable savings. Most restaurants don’t have access to deal directly with farms to get better deals because they lack the staffing to chase them. Besides, they also don’t have the aggregation pull as single entities to directly get good value from the farms. Nigerian startup Vendease solves this problem by building a marketplace that allows restaurants to buy directly from farms and food manufacturers.”