Telecom
Mobile Payment: Potential and reality for Nigeria
The ability to pay for goods and services without having to carry cash or cards has universal appeal. In Africa it is being driven by the need to reduce the risk of theft. The mobile is ideal because it is cheap and ubiquitous and can authenticate the payer and payee and record the transaction. The recent re-awakening of initiatives in the mobile and financial industry on mobile banking and payment services is causing a stream of field trials and potential new revenue streams and customers for the financial services sector.
The mobile payment industry will change the way consumers interact with financial services and make payments. Mobile financial services will include consumer accounts information, updates, alerts, bill payments, person to person transactions and remittances.
The mobile will play a key part in the foundation of sustainable development in Nigeria. In a country where electricity and transportation are unreliable, the mobile phone is a driving force for change – and not just for voice calls. Mobile phones can address one of the biggest cost barriers in the value chain.
The success of M-pesa in Kenya has demonstrated the strong compelling need for a platform that can empower Africans to make transaction cashless and without need to visit a Bank. Nigeria’s seeming slow uptake of mobile payment presents a huge opportunity that can revolutionize the payment world, create new set of mobile entrepreneurs and new Business models with strong value realization in a market of 54 million mobile subscribers and an addressable market of 140 million people.
The mobile phone is a powerful channel for developing business. The Banks can still not yet win the youth segment accounts because they are approaching them via traditional channel and not what they always have with them, the mobile phone. The youth segment will most likely adopt mobile payment faster than the older segment because they are early adopters of technology and the good news is that they constitute a large segment in the mobile subscription pyramid in Nigeria and still largely unbanked or under-banked. Simple arithmetic from total subscriber base in Nigeria, shows that 54 million mobile subscription base is twice the Bank account holders of about 24 million, this clearly shows a huge 30 million people out there with mobile phones but without a Bank account.
Nigeria financial industry players seeks elusive mobile technologies and standards but slow progress is being made towards achieving interoperable and transparent standards for mobile payments. The process is complicated by the large number of stakeholders involved, in addition to the challenge of integrating various business models and technology layers into one platform. Even the term ‘mobile payments’ has different definitions. While some Banks currently offering Mobile Banking are erroneously classifying their service as mobile payment even when the subscribers cannot do more than check account balance or transfer money between self account in same Bank.
Wizzit in South Africa, M-pesa in Kenya, Gcash in Philippines are country with similar demographics with Nigeria are examples of very successful mobile payments deployments.
Mobile operators are known not to be very adept in providing core payment and financial services, hence there is need for cross industry collaborations like what we have seen in the Glo / First bank cash card and the MTN / UBA x-change cards. Such collaborations is paying off in the mobile Banking arena in South Africa’s MTN and Standard Bank’s partnership. In South Africa, MTN, launched a SIM-based m-banking service with Standard Bank in a 50:50 joint venture, MTN MobileMoney. The Y’ello Bank, as it is often referred to after MTN’s pan-regional Y’ello branding campaign, operates as a separate division of Standard Bank, and as such is regulated under Standard Bank’s banking licence which brings compliance and interoperability to the rest of the payment infrastructure.
Many Nigerian Banks are evaluating different mobile payment systems from offshore providers but they are yet to learn from Africa’s own painful experiences in wap Banking. Offshore transfer of WAP banking technology was a disaster because an internet-based technology was applied to the mobile phone, resulting in an experience that was slow, unreliable and costly for consumers in a continent with expensive mobile internet cost, poor coverage, hand set limitations and inadequate customer education. Simpler technologies would have achieved more.
SMS text messages will continue to be the dominant channel for mobile payments, although take-up of WAP, USSD and near field communications (NFC) contactless services will also grow. NFC technology seems to be attracting attention of players in Nigeria because of its ease of use and the European Hype but they are not factoring the end user into the plan at this early stage. The main draw back for NFC is that users will require acquiring NFC enabled handsets and that will be a major obstacle in a economy where income per head is low and average Hand set replacement rate is four years.Near sound Data transfer technology of the likes of Tag attitude of France are clear bridge gap measures not requiring any form of new hand set acquisition from the end user and it is immediately compatible with all Phone models.
Already, informal exchanges of Mobile Airtime locally in Nigeria accounts for over 5 percent of airtime purchases and Banks might start losing market share if people find it more convenient to move money around and repay their debts, send little amounts to friends and relatives via this informal channel for small value payments.
A mobile payment system therefore needs to adapt its technology and business model to its specific target demographic and not the other way around. The potential for mobile payments, especially in emerging markets where many people are unbanked and few other payment options exist, is obvious. In developed countries, on the other hand, these types of services will likely appeal more as a matter of convenience and extension of the other payment options available, rather than as a replacement bank.
Mobile payment is not a problem of technology. It is the management of the ecosystems of players like Banks which lack the technology, telcos industry non collaborative positions and inadequate understanding of financial matters and lastly, regulations which does not take into consideration, the speed of technology innovation that will hinder the growth of the sector that is already striving underground though not illegally but informally.
Airtel Nigeria has reaffirmed its long-term commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s digital infrastructure and data access to bridge gaps in connectivity and unlock new opportunities in the country.
The company restated this commitment during a recent high-level inspection tour of the Nxtra Data Centre that is being developed through Nxtra by Airtel Africa at Eko Atlantic, Lagos, the highly rated smart city with ambition to become the Data Centre hub of Nigeria.
The inspection tour was led by the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh and the Chief Executive Officer of Nxtra by Airtel Africa, Yashnath Issur, with the esteemed chairman of Eko Atlantic Mr. Gabbi Massoud, the CEO of the lead Engineering firm Design Group Limited, Mr. Bayo Odunlami and tech journalists.
The Nxtra Data Centre went through a stringent design validation process and cleared the approval to proceed construction from Eko Atlantic.
Commenting on the developments, Mr Issur said the site visit was a milestone marker and an indication of the company’s commitment to delivering the world-class digital facility on time and ensure that, ultimately, the investments deliver reliable, secure, world-class services for Nigeria and the rest of the continent.
“This Nxtra Data Centre in Lagos represents a critical part of our long-term vision for Nigeria’s digital ecosystem. Today’s visit allows us to review progress, engage our stakeholders, and ensure that our infrastructure investments continue to meet global standards and local needs.
“This data centre will deliver critical high multi megawatt capacity in line with hyperscale customers and enable high density environment. We are putting the infra to bring the cloud to Nigeria,” he said.
The data centre, set to be the largest in Nigeria, is being established to deliver hyperscale and edge facilities across key African markets. With a load of 38 Megawatts, the Lagos facility is expected to serve as a major hub for data hosting, cloud services, content distribution, artificial intelligence, and enterprise solutions in West Africa.
In his remarks, Mr Balsingh reiterated that the data centre was progressing steadily towards the previously announced 2028 go live date.
“Since the announcement of this project, our focus has been on building a world-class facility that supports Africa’s digital transformation agenda. We are encouraged by the progress recorded so far and remain committed to delivering a secure, energy-efficient, and future-ready data centre for Nigeria,” he said.
During the tour, stakeholders were ushered through key sections of the site, including piling zones, where required structural requirements have been tested. Technical teams provided briefings on infrastructure design, security architecture, redundancy systems, and sustainability measures being implemented to ensure reliability and operational excellence.
Strategically located close to major fibre routes and undersea cable landing stations, the Eko Atlantic data centre is designed to enhance Nigeria’s data sovereignty, reduce latency, and improve access to reliable digital services for private and enterprise customers, significantly boosting the country’s data hosting capacity and supporting emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Mr. Massoud noted that the inspection tour underscored the city’s dedication to infrastructure of global relevance.
“Eko Atlantic as a city with high quality infrastructure will contribute positively to boost the economy of Nigeria and is a perfect place for the development of the digital infrastructure of Nigeria. The Nxtra data centre reflects the calibre of projects we seek to attract — long-term, technology-driven investments built to the highest global standards.
Today’s visit affirms the rigour of the planning and execution process by Nxtra, and the commitment of Eko Atlantic to facilitate and promote the Nigeria’s evolving digital ecosystem,” he said.
Through this ongoing investment, Airtel Nigeria and Nxtra continue to demonstrate their commitment to building infrastructure that enables innovation, supports economic development, and accelerates Nigeria’s digital transformation.
Nxtra by Airtel is developing a network of hyperscale data centres across the continent. Besides Lagos, construction of a new data centre has also commenced in Nairobi, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Google has partnered with top African research institutions to unveil WAXAL, a massive open-access speech dataset aimed at giving over 100 million people across Sub-Saharan Africa a stronger voice in the AI future.
The initiative, announced Monday, targets a key digital gap by supplying high-quality data for 21 local languages, such as Hausa, Yoruba, Luganda, and Acholi. It includes 1,250 hours of transcribed natural speech and more than 20 hours of studio-grade recordings for advanced synthetic voice tech.
Voice AI has exploded globally, yet Africa’s 2,000-plus languages suffer from severe data shortages, sidelining hundreds of millions from native-tongue tech access. WAXAL, three years in the making with Google funding, changes that equation.
“This dataset lays the groundwork for students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to craft tech in their own languages, impacting over 100 million lives,” said Aisha Walcott-Bryantt, Head of Google Research Africa.
She highlighted its potential for African innovators to develop educational tools and voice services that spark economic growth continent-wide.
Community-led from the start, the project involved Makerere University (Uganda), University of Ghana, Digital Umuganda (Rwanda), and others. These partners own the data outright, pioneering fair AI collaboration models.
Covered languages: Acholi, Akan, Dagaare, Dagbani, Dholuo, Ewe, Fante, Fulani (Fula), Hausa, Igbo, Ikposo (Kposo), Kikuyu, Lingala, Luganda, Malagasy, Masaaba, Nyankole, Rukiga, Shona, Soga (Lusoga), Swahili, Yoruba.
WAXAL goes live today. Details at goo.gle/IntroducingWaxal.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has unveiled its Q4 2025 Network Performance Reports, showcasing nationwide quality boosts fueled by over $1 billion in industry investments and sharper regulatory focus.
NCC
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Aminu Maida, executive vice chairman, NCC, hailed the Ookla-backed data as proof of NCC’s drive for transparent, evidence-driven oversight of Nigeria’s digital growth.
The reports track real-user experiences across cities, villages, highways, and nascent 5G areas, revealing faster median download speeds in both urban and rural spots versus Q3 2025.
Video streaming quality gaps between city and countryside have shrunk, thanks to a beefed-up 4G network—yet 5G rollout lags, upload speeds falter, and coverage holes linger in spots.
Maida said NCC is leaning on operators to fix these via spectrum tweaks, infrastructure drives, and stricter service rules, with 2025’s 2,850 new sites already paying off in broader reach and capacity.
Operators pledge even bigger spends in 2026 to keep the momentum, aiming for top-tier connectivity and economic inclusion for all Nigerians.
“We’ll turn these insights into real gains in service and access,” Maida affirmed, calling for sustained industry teamwork.
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