Nigeria’s most prominent unicorns, MoniePoint and OPay have been groaning under debilitating fines imposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The nation’s apex bank, as part of its sanitation and scrutiny of fintech Startups, weighed its big stick on the two financial institutions by slamming them with a whooping sum of N1 billion each.
Investors King learned that they incurred heavy fines in the second quarter of 2024.
Even though several other fintech companies were also penalised, it was gathered that the MoniePoint and Opay took the lion share of the sanctions.
The penalties were as a result of a routine CBN audit of the fintech sector, which exposed alleged non-compliance by the defaulting institutions.
These regulatory checks embarked upon by the CBN are said to be a standard procedure for banks and financial institutions under its oversight.
At least four other fintech companies were similarly fined.
The CBN has increasingly relied on fines to enforce regulatory compliance.
Recall that in 2023, Nigerian banks paid a combined ₦678 million in penalties.
The same issue happened in October 2024 when the central bank and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) imposed a ₦15 billion fine on ten commercial banks, including Zenith and GTBank, for various infractions in the first half of the year.
Before now, Nigeria’s developing fintech sector largely operated without CBN interference.
However, the rapid expansion of fintechs like OPay and Moniepoint, which now serve millions of users, has invited greater scrutiny.
For instance, Opay claims a customer base of around 40 million, while Moniepoint, which processed 5.2 billion transactions in 2023, does not disclose specific customer numbers but is similarly large.
While these fintech giants continue to expand in influence and acceptability, stakeholders have not totally developed confidence in them owing to apparent lack of stringent regulatory measures by the oversight bank.
One of the major concerns of customers and other stakeholders is that many fintechs, including OPay and Moniepoint, still operate under microfinance bank licenses.
The startups were intentionally designed to support micro, small, and medium enterprises, but these licenses have allowed the companies to expand rapidly and service millions of customers.
Notwithstanding, there is still concern that the current licensing framework is inadequate to safeguard customers effectively.
Beyond licensing, the CBN has lamented the fintechs’ alleged non-compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) processes.
In April 2024, the central bank imposed a two-month ban on customer onboarding for several fintech companies, including Kuda Bank and Palmpay, citing non-compliance with KYC standards.
The ban forced fintechs to overhaul their onboarding procedures and commit to improving their compliance measures.
Meanwhile, Opay has denied being fined by the CBN even as MoniePoint did not react.
