E-Financial
Telcos Are Becoming Banks for The Next 2Bn Customers
By Douglas B. Laney
Telecommunications companies across Africa and Latin America spend $15-21 billion annually on customer retention programs.
According to GSMA Intelligence’s State of the Industry Report, telcos in Sub-Saharan Africa lose up to 67% of their customers each year, despite spending 10-14% of their revenue on customer retention efforts.
Meanwhile, these same customers desperately need financial services that traditional banks often fail to provide.
The fix might already exist. Every smartphone in Lagos or Lima contains more processing power than major banks had twenty years ago.
Yet telecom companies use them only for calls and data, missing a massive opportunity to transform these devices into financial infrastructure.
Three Forces Reshaping the Financial Market
However, three global trends are occurring to encourage an expansion and stickiness of the services telcos provide:
First, 2 billion people are getting connected for the first time, mostly through smartphones in developing countries.
The ITU reports that 2.1 billion people remain unconnected or under-connected globally, with 96% in developing nations.
But unlike early internet users who dealt with dial-up and basic websites, today’s new users get immediate access to sophisticated applications and stable networks.
Second, these markets altogether skip the traditional banking evolution. The World Bank’s Global Findex Database shows 1.4 billion adults remain unbanked, concentrated in regions where mobile money already dominates.
Rural Colombia never built bank branches.
Nigerian villages never installed ATMs. So when mobile payments arrived, people switched from cash directly to digital money without the friction of introducing banks or changing established habits.
“The mobile industry has never been more important to the world’s citizens and economy,” says Mats Granryd, Director General of GSMA. “Mobile money is a game-changer for the financial inclusion of women and other underserved groups.
It provides a gateway to a wider range of financial services, including savings, credit, and insurance, which can help people build resilience and improve their livelihoods.”
Third, global financial control has begun to fragment. The Bank for International Settlements found that only 3 of 114 central bank digital currency pilots have actually launched, with most failing due to technical problems and poor adoption.
BRICS nations built their own payment systems. Some countries added Bitcoin to their national reserves. The old centralized system no longer holds sway.
Chris Surdak, CEO of ReLeaf Financial, puts it bluntly: “The World Bank, the World Economic Forum, CBDCs, all were aligning to constrain free market adoption of cryptocurrency..After decades of dipping our toes in these waters, people are now ready to cross the crypto Rubicon in force.”
From Payphones to Phones that Pay
Most people haven’t considered the possibility of earning money while their smartphones sit idle.
However, ReLeaf developed a patent-pending system called “Proof of Intent” that turns phones into transaction validators.
When someone in Peru sends money to their family, phones in Colombia could verify the transaction.
Phone owners can earn small cryptocurrency rewards that add up to cover data plans, airtime, or groceries—thereby potentially solving the loyalty and retention problem.
“There are billions of people living on three or four dollars a day if they’re lucky,” Surdak explains. “How can you meaningfully exist today without being digitally connected? ReLeaf makes both happen at the same time.”
Claro, a major Latin American telecom, calculated that there is over $350 million in potential new revenue out there over the next five years, with significantly lower churn. This doesn’t even require any new infrastructure, just software updates to existing apps.
Dante Disparte, Chief Strategy Officer at Circle, sees broader implications: “In many parts of the world, having access to a stable currency is not a given.
Stablecoins can provide a safe and reliable store of value for people in countries with high inflation or political instability.” He adds that stablecoins are programmable, which “opens up a whole new world of possibilities for financial services in emerging markets, from micropayments and remittances to decentralized finance applications.”
David Chaum, the inventor of digital cash in the 1980s and creator of much of the encryption that protects modern transactions, warned about surveillance capitalism decades before Facebook existed. Yet he just joined ReLeaf’s strategy team.
“ReLeaf is what I have always dreamed that cryptocurrency would be,” Chaum says. “A win for telcos, retailers, and consumers.”
Coming from the man who founded DigiCash in 1989 and whose patents enable every secure transaction today, this means something. Chaum wanted regular people to control their money without surveillance or permission. He imagined cryptography empowering individuals, not corporations. After forty years, he sees it happening through ReLeaf’s approach: phones earning money for their owners without tracking or central control.
The Merging of Emerging Markets
Traditional banks in New York or London can’t pull this off. They face centuries of regulations, customers expecting physical branches, and systems held together with outdated COBOL code. Emerging markets don’t have that baggage.
In Kenya, M-PESA proved it. One telecom company, using basic phones and zero banking infrastructure, now processes half of Kenya’s GDP. The GSMA’s 2024 Mobile Money report reveals that global mobile money transactions exceeded $1 trillion, with Africa accounting for 70% of that volume.
Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO of AZA Finance, stresses the need for local solutions: “Africa is not a country. It’s a continent of 54 different countries, each with its own regulatory environment, its own currency, its own challenges, and its own opportunities. You can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach.”
She’s watched the transformation firsthand: “The future of payments in Africa is mobile. We’ve seen a huge leapfrog effect, where many people have skipped the traditional banking system and gone straight to mobile money. This has created a massive opportunity for innovation in the digital payments space.”
Laney, is a Contributor Data, Analytics and AI Strategy Advisor and Researcher
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has launched a new digital platform to track every foreign exchange transaction involving Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators, marking a major step in its efforts to improve transparency and strengthen oversight of the country’s retail forex market.
In an operational guidance issued on July 15 to authorised dealer banks and licensed BDCs, the apex bank introduced the FX BDC Purchase Tracker (FXBT), a centralised electronic portal designed to monitor foreign exchange purchases by BDCs from the point of request through approval, settlement and eventual sale.
The CBN said the portal will require BDCs to upload real-time or same-day data on all FX purchases made through the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM), giving the regulator transaction-level visibility across the retail FX market.
According to the bank, the platform is designed to prevent abuse by making it easier to detect operators attempting to exceed the weekly purchase limit of $150,000, obtain allocations from multiple banks or divert foreign exchange outside approved channels.
The launch of the tracker builds on the CBN’s February policy that restored direct access for licensed BDCs to purchase foreign exchange from authorised dealer banks through the NFEM. While that policy improved access to official FX, the new platform provides the digital infrastructure to monitor how the funds are used.
Under the new framework, authorised dealer banks must conduct comprehensive Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and customer due diligence checks before selling foreign exchange to any BDC.
The new guideline also says banks must verify beneficial ownership information, retain incorporation documents and carry out enhanced due diligence for higher-risk operators.
Any BDC that fails these checks will not be allowed to access official foreign exchange.
The guidance also requires banks to acknowledge BDC purchase requests submitted through the FXBT portal within two business hours and immediately notify operators whether their requests have been approved or rejected.
To discourage speculation, the CBN directed that any forex purchased through the NFEM but left unused must be sold back into the market within 24 hours after the expiration of the utilisation period.
BDCs are also required to disclose any previously unused balances when submitting fresh requests.
In addition, all foreign exchange transactions between banks, BDCs and customers must be settled through registered accounts with licensed financial institutions.
Third-party transactions are prohibited, and any transfer outside a BDC’s registered settlement account will be treated as a regulatory violation.
The apex bank also said all authorised dealer banks and licensed BDCs are expected to comply with the new regulatory guidance and operational procedures with immediate effect.
President Bola Tinubu has signed the Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, 2026, introducing a coordinated framework to regulate Nigeria’s fast-growing virtual assets sector, combat fraud and strengthen oversight without creating a new regulatory agency.
The Executive Order, which took immediate effect, establishes a Virtual Asset Council to harmonise the activities of financial, revenue and capital market regulators while promoting responsible innovation in the digital economy.
According to a statement issued on Friday by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the order was signed pursuant to Section 5 of the 1999 Constitution to address growing regulatory gaps as virtual assets increasingly blur the boundaries between currencies, commodities, securities and payment systems.
The Presidency said the fragmented regulatory landscape had exposed Nigeria to risks including money laundering, terrorism financing, cybercrime, data privacy breaches, fraud and significant revenue losses, with fraudulent operators exploiting loopholes to defraud unsuspecting investors.
Under the new framework, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will chair the Virtual Asset Council, while the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will serve as vice-chairmen. Other members include the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).
The Council will coordinate policy, strengthen collaboration among regulators and work with the Attorney-General of the Federation to develop a harmonised legal framework that aligns virtual asset regulation with Nigeria’s economic, security and social priorities.
The Executive Order also establishes a Virtual Asset Office, domiciled at the CBN, to serve as the Council’s operational secretariat. The office will coordinate information sharing, applications and reporting among participating agencies through an integrated supervisory technology platform while allowing each institution to retain control over its data.
The Presidency stressed that the order does not establish a new regulator or transfer statutory powers from existing agencies. Instead, it creates a coordination mechanism under which regulatory responsibilities will depend on the nature of the virtual asset or activity involved.
Under the arrangement, the SEC will continue to regulate virtual assets classified as securities, while the CBN will oversee payment, settlement, custody and other non-security virtual asset services. The Council will resolve jurisdictional disputes where responsibilities overlap.
As part of the reforms, the CBN will launch a regulatory sandbox that will allow eligible firms to test virtual asset products and blockchain-based solutions under close regulatory supervision before they are introduced into the wider market.
Similarly, the Nigeria Revenue Service will issue a dedicated tax policy for the virtual assets sector to clarify tax obligations, improve voluntary compliance and ensure the rapidly expanding industry contributes fairly to government revenue.
The Federal Government is also finalising a comprehensive Virtual Assets White Paper, which will outline Nigeria’s long-term policy direction for the sector.
President Tinubu directed the newly established Council to produce a Harmonised Implementation Framework within 30 days to facilitate the immediate implementation of the Executive Order and strengthen confidence in Nigeria’s digital economy.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has commenced a nationwide enlightenment campaign to help Nigerians recover unclaimed dividends and other monies arising from capital market transactions.
The campaign, which began with a town hall meeting in Lagos on Thursday, is aimed at sensitising investors on the existence of unclaimed monies, the role of the National Investor Protection Fund (NIPF) and the procedures for verifying and recovering legitimate claims.
Emomotimi Agama, director-general of SEC, who was represented at the event by Hafsat Rufai, director, Registration and Exchanges, Market Infrastructure Department, said the initiative was necessary to ensure that funds belonging to investors were returned to their rightful owners.
Agama said unclaimed monies administered by the NIPF included return monies from public offers, scheme consideration from mergers, acquisitions and corporate restructuring transactions, as well as other funds belonging to investors that had remained unclaimed.
He noted that the Commission considered it unacceptable for investors’ funds to remain unclaimed, adding that many investors and their families were either unaware that such monies existed or did not know the procedures for recovering them.
Agama said the SEC Board had approved a nationwide public enlightenment campaign to sensitise Nigerians on unclaimed monies, the role of the NIPF and the process for making legitimate claims.
He said the Lagos programme marked the commencement of the outreach, which would subsequently cover the six geopolitical zones and the Federal Capital Territory.
The director-general said the campaign would also address the transmission of securities following the death of an investor, noting that families were often unaware that their deceased relatives owned shares or other capital market investments.
He said even when beneficiaries were aware of such investments, many lacked knowledge of the legal and administrative procedures required to obtain probate or letters of administration and transmit the investments to the rightful beneficiaries.
Agama said the Lagos programme included an expert session on probate administration and the transmission of securities to demystify the process and provide practical guidance to investors and their families.
He urged investors to maintain proper records of their investments and encouraged families to take steps to preserve inherited wealth.
The SEC DG also warned Nigerians against Ponzi schemes and other fraudulent investment arrangements, saying fraudsters continued to exploit economic pressures and digital platforms to lure unsuspecting members of the public with promises of guaranteed and unusually high returns.
He urged the public to be cautious of investment opportunities offering risk-free returns, stressing that investor education and vigilance remained critical to combating financial fraud.
Speaking on behalf of Lawal Pedro, attorney-general and commissioner for Justice,Lagos State, Olujoke Ogunojemite, deputy director in the Ministry of Justice, commended the SEC for extending the campaign to Lagos and recognising the role of legal institutions in resolving issues relating to unclaimed dividends and other assets.
She said the issue had a practical impact on beneficiaries who were unable to access assets after the death of their loved ones.
Ogunojemite said the ministry was committed to ensuring that legal processes did not become barriers to beneficiaries seeking to recover legitimate assets.
She described the SEC’s outreach as commendable, saying it would help restore assets to their rightful beneficiaries.
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