Nigerian Bank Reports Loss of 566,000 Customers as CBN’s Directives on NIN Registration Hits Hard

• MTN’s MoMo Payment Service Bank has reported a loss of 566,000 active waller users due to the NIN linkage direct by the CBN
• The company said that the development impacted its revenue in the first quarter of 2024
• However, the telecommunication company said it saw an improved revenue of N22.8 billion in the period under review

Legit.ng’s Pascal Oparada has reported on tech, energy, stocks, investment and the economy for over a decade.

The payment unit of MTN Nigeria Communications Plc, MoMo Payment Service Bank, has reported a loss of 566,000 in its wallet user base due to the Nigerian government's directive on the linkage of the National Identity Card (NIN) from January 1 to March 31, 2024.

MTN Nigeria’s Chief Executive Officer, Karl Toriola, stated this in the company’s financials for Q1 2024.

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CBN NIN directives affects customers' wallets

The MTN boss noted that the first quarter was challenging for the business. The decline was due to the NIN requirement for KYC validation by the Central Bank of Nigeria, which affected almost one million active wallets.

He stated that the loss affected the development of the business in the period, resulting in a decline in the active MoMo PSB wallet users by 566,000 in the first quarter to 4.8 million.

Reports say the company’s fintech revenue rose marginally by 0.7% to N22.8 billion from N22.6 billion recorded in the same period in 2023.

Regarding agents, the company said it ended the quarter with 232.3,000 MoMo agents, including OTC agents, showing a decline of 94,400 in the review period.

MTN said:

“Excluding OTC transactions, MoMo agents were 189.6k, In Q1 MoMo added more than 75k merchants, bringing the total number of merchants within our ecosystem to over 400k.”

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Nigeria contributes to a boom in mobile money in Africa

A recent GSMA report acknowledged that the number of registered mobile money accounts in West Africa has risen since 2013, driven by growth in Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal.

The development made Sub-Saharan Africa the centre of global mobile money’s success, as it has almost three-quarters of the world’s mobile money accounts.

GSMA said.

“Mobile money is often considered an African success story, and in many ways, it is. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest levels of mobile money adoption in the world,” the global industry body for telcos said.

GSMA's director general, Mats Granryd, stressed that 1.75 billion registered accounts are now processing $1.4 billion annually, or about $2.7 billion per minute.

MTN, Airtel, Glo, others push for tariff hike

Legit.ng previously reported that telecom operators, represented by the Association of Licensed Telecom Companies of Nigeria (ALTON) and the Association of Telecom Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) have called for a tariff that reflects the actual cost of services.

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The call is subsequent to earlier calls by ALTON for the federal government through the regulatory agencies to consider tariff increases for calls and data.

According to The Nation, the groups released a joint statement appealing to the Federal Government to safeguard telecom infrastructure from deliberate vandalism and theft.

Source: Legit.ng