Temitope Shogaolu, head of the financial inclusion secretariat at the CBN says Fast Moving Consumer Goods companies and other interested parties can apply for a payment service bank license if they met the required criteria.
“As regulators, we are after providing a level playing field for interested parties to move the needle on financial inclusion,” Akin- Fadeyi said at the Lagos Business School and Business Day financial inclusion conference, Thursday.
“Fast consumer goods companies and other interested parties can apply for a license,” Akin-Fadeyi said.
“We want everyone that is interested and able to drive financial inclusion ahead of 2020 when we expect to achieve the national target of 20 percent exclusion,” Fadeyi added.
The CBN published a draft document nearly two months ago, which set out the concept of a payment service bank as it targets a level playing field for financial and non financial service companies to participate as mobile money service providers in a country where over 40 percent of bankable adults don’t own as little as a bank account.
The move is a break away from the country’s system of bank-led mobile money services, which meant only the banks could provide such services.
However, the new model will also see telecommunication companies serve as financial service providers, but indirectly by creating a subsidiary unit, as Nigeria attempts to replicate a model that has succeeded in peer countries.
MTN and Airtel said they have applied for the license.
