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 made this statement on Tuesday at the 295th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja, where the MPC raised the interest rate from 24.75 percent to 26.25 percent.
The CBN chief mentioned that the apex bank has engaged with many players in the sector to emphasize the need for strengthening their operations.
To combat money laundering and illicit flows, Cardoso explained that the apex bank has implemented “remedial measures that will help the sector tighten up on onboarding and even manage their 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 halted fintech companies from onboarding new customers, a move perceived as a crackdown on the financial sub-sector by the Cardoso-led CBN.
When questioned about the reason behind this decision, the CBN chief stated that claims of the CBN clamping 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 year 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 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 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 with respect to 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 as at this point in time, we have not revoked the licenses of any of the fintech organisations.”