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.”
CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso stated this on Tuesday at the 295th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja, where the MPC raised the interest rate from 24.75 per cent to 26.25 per cent.
The CBN chief said the apex bank has engaged many of the players on the need to strengthen their operations.
Cardoso said to block money laundering and illicit flows, the apex bank brought up “remedial measures that will help that sector to tighten up on onboarding and even existing clientele base”.
“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 that sector going back into what they’ve been known to do before, but certainly with a very stronger regulatory framework,” he said.
In April, the apex bank stopped fintech companies from onboarding new customers, a move that has been seen as a clampdown on the financial sub-sector by the Cardoso-led CBN.
When asked why the apex bank took the decision, the CBN chief said reports that the CBN has decided to clamp down on fintech firms are “furthest from the truth”
He said “The fintechs have not been singled out for any exceptional kind of treatment”, adding that the CBN remained proud of the exploits of fintech firms in the last number of years and the apex bank would continue to support and strengthen them.
“However, regulation is very critical in a sector that seems to have grown so incredibly rapidly,” Cardoso said, citing illicit flows within the sub-sector.
“More recently, we had the course to take a deep dive look at the whole issue of illicit flows and money laundering particularly within the non-heavy regulated banking system and we all know some of the issues that came out with cryptos and some of the messages we put out after that, which of course, gave us some course to know that there is the need for heightened surveillance.”
He said the apex bank has had a major handshake with security agencies to identify the places to tighten regulations and surveillance in the sub-sector.
Cardoso said, “For that reason, we were concerned about how we saw the issue of anti-money laundering and illicit flows as they made their way within the various sub-sectors of the financial industry and we felt there was a need for us to take a breather and work with different players to strengthen regulations, not by any means to throw them out of business.
“Let me re-emphasise that at this point, we have not revoked the licenses of any of the fintech organisations.”
Earlier, some bank customers expressed panic as the Central Bank of Nigeria banned mobile money operators including fintech firms from onboarding new customers.
However, the Bank Customers Association of Nigeria backed the CBN directive.