E-Financial
Sustaining Financial Inclusion Through Viable Agent Network
By Fasasi Sarafadeen Atanda
As it is today, financial inclusion is stakeholders’ slogan; the awareness has been created Agents are everywhere, but there is a threat and that threat is agent viability. There is no doubt about it all the stakeholders, such the banks, the MNO, MMO have realized that agents play very key role in delivering digital financial services.
If you look at all the strategies of the mobile network operators, mobile money operators and the banks you will find aggregators that show that agents are key in delivering strategy.
If agents are key how then do we make agents viable? My experience has shown that we have high rate of agents’ turnover as a major challenge at the same time provider performance instability as also a major issue. So, we have two major issues that will help to sustain financial inclusion.
Agents’ turnover rate is too high and also the providers or principal, their performance is also not stable. What I mean by that is, on the agents part of turnover, my visit to the field confirmed that the agents that the providers have invested in training, marketing, on boarding in the last three years, greater percentage of them are no longer in business.
That is a waste of resources. They now have new agents that they need to also train and brand again.
I am sure in the next one year if you visit those locations you will find a new sets of agents. In this situation, we are turning over experiences which are not going to lead into sustainability.
What are those things that are responsible for this? First is general skill-set or capacity. What we have is individual provider training agents which is good, if you are agents of Paga, Paga will train you; if you are agents of Opay, Opay will train you.
If you look at the content of the training it is specific to their platform, it is about how to transact on their platform, dispute resolution on their platform, and it is really not about profitability and knowledge of the business.
Actually, viability of agents is determined by making agency banking or agent network a business and not as a service. They don’t train agents on how they will be productive or cost analysis structure.
Training of agents should be handled by a neutral body or training consultants, to be able to deliver cost benefit training on the agents. Even if you are agents of operator A or agents of operator B you will be trained on how to cover your cost as well as how to remain in business.
As at today, SANEF has been playing that role; we want them to do more, they are in the best position to provider general knowledge in training of agents.
Secondly, is what I called platform quality; here we have mobile App platform, and POS Channel platform. This is a major factor responsible for agents’ turnover, by the time you rout transaction through a platform that has not been tested and certified good, you run into trouble and lose your money, this makes agents to be discouraged in the business and before you know it they will close shop.
For instance, if you are transacting with N100,000 capital and you find yourself transacting on a particular provider’s platform of inferior quality because of lack of security. We need to find out if such platforms are secured and feasible. Can you see the money you put in and the money going out? That is transaction history.
Again, what is the time of resolution of dispute and the channel of dispute resolution? Who is supervising this? We need to start certifying any transaction platform that will be used by agents. This has to do with involving stakeholders that have been able to work with all the platforms.
Thirdly is the support system, we have seen a situation where the principal for example, a bank with an agent network. The agent will come to a bank and won’t have a fair treatment in terms of say I want to quickly get cash and go back to location, No. Banks don’t see their agents as agents they want them to go and queue up in line like other customers. This discourages agents as they will spend the whole day in the bank.
This is contrary to what obtains in some Asian and South American countries where financial inclusion is flying, in those environments, the principals are supporting the agents. In Brazil, a bank opens a ‘Till account’ for the agents with a limit, as agents are transacting they don’t need to be looking for money up and down, they are transacting from the ‘Till account’ a sort of an advance. But, here there is no support from the principals.
Multiple taxes: Local government and state government are coming to agent location for one levy or the other. You can’t imagine State government revenue agents are coming, LCDA and LGA agents are coming to a single kiosk. It is worst these days as local government are looking for revenue everywhere, they have now printed a special receipt they called permit for POS.
It is important we borrow a leaf from countries like Uganda and Tanzania where there is a direct statement from central bank of those countries that certain categories of financial inclusion at the level of agents are excluded from these obnoxious taxes. I have closed about three locations in Niger State, five in Kaduna because every day local government harass us for one levy or the other.
On provider performance instability: If you check the statistics, the top five providers MMO, MNO in the past five years, they are not among the top ten today. Why?
A provider that can boast of 70,000 to 100,000 agents today they have crashed to 5,000 some are struggling for 2,000 agents. We need to find out why agents are closing shops.
Among the reasons are: 1. Most of them roll out without pilot even when they are doing pilot it is done within their office and they won’t get agents in the field involved for a proper product design feedback in order to know what the market requires.
I have witnessed a provider that rolled out agency platform believing that they are everywhere, unfortunately when they rolled out we discovered that their platform lack feasibility no agent history. You can’t view your transaction history. You don’t have feasibility into your transaction and they have spent so much money and can’t recall it again, imagine investment that has gone the drained. Today, they are not among the first ten providers because they have lost so much money.
Also in the strategy, I have checked through a lot of providers’ strategy across the channels; the MMO, MNO and the Banks led, I discovered that they don’t engage the practitioners before they design their strategy and their strategies have always be the same.
If you look at commission structure and on boarding processes, they are all the same, so the mistake of one is been repeated in the other. Strategy of agency banking is not cast in stone you have to look at what is obtainable in the market. These are some of the causes of the downfall of most of the providers.
Also the feedback channel, most of them don’t want to listen to feedback. I have seen providers’ WhatApp group platform where they are the only one authorised to give out information, agents cannot comment. This is funny. On their platform, they will add you as their agent but you cannot write anything there. It is only for passing of information to agents. How would they know what is happening in the market, how would they listen to complains? How would they get feedback to improve on their system?
More so, their objective is more of ‘Profit-centric’, in one year you want to recoup your investment, because of this that they give unrealistic targets to their staff, “On board” “On board” before you know it, they on board nonsense for them and as they are on boarding, people are disembodying.
The most successful financial inclusion organisation in Africa is Mpesa in Kenya. In their first year they did not sell any product, they only registered 400 agents compared to providers in Nigeria where in their first year they want to hit 100,000 agents. Providers in Nigeria should be Customer-centric and not Profit-centric.
They should try as much as possible to make sure that people accept their product and sale value to them if you want to retain them. Agents’ retention is nearly zero in Nigeria that is why you see agents on board today and tomorrow dis-on board.
On dispute resolution channels, today most of the MNO if they want to deploy terminals or retrieve PoS from agents, there are no define guard lines, some of them will lock some of their agents wallet so that they don’t have access to the funds again so that he can come to them and they will collect their terminal.
There should be human face to everything, today there are some MNO that throw in debit to agents account without notification, when you inquire they say it is charges of non-performance. Because you are not using their PoS very well they will debit you for the cost of the PoS. MNOs are behaving as if there are no regulation in the system.
Fasasi Sarafadeen Atanda is chief executive officer of partner de Ecosystem, an agent network management company.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has revised the minimum capital applicable to all categories of regulated capital market entities after 10 years.
The minimum capital review, according to the SEC, is informed by the need to strengthen market resilience, enhance investor protection, align capital adequacy with the evolving risk profile of market activities, and ensure that regulated entities possess sufficient financial capacity to discharge their obligations in a sustainable manner.
“The revised Minimum Capital framework seeks to: enhance the financial soundness and operational resilience of market operators; align capital requirements with the scope, complexity, and risk exposure of regulated activities; promote market stability and systemic risk mitigation; and support innovation and orderly development of new market segments, including digital assets and commodities markets,” SEC said in a January 16 circular to market operators.
The SEC circular was sent to all entities regulated by the Commission, including but not limited to core and non-core capital market operators; market infrastructure institutions; capital market consultants; financial technology (FinTech) operators; Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs); and Commodity market intermediaries.
All affected entities are required to comply with the revised Minimum Capital Requirements on or before June 30, 2027, the circular said.
“Entities that fail to meet the prescribed requirements within the stipulated timeline shall be subject to appropriate regulatory sanctions, including suspension or withdrawal of registration, as may be determined by the Commission,” SEC said.
Tier-1 Portfolio Managers (Full Scope) involved in the management of Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) and Alternative Investment Funds (Private Equity, Venture Capital, Infrastructure Funds etc) above N20 billion Net Asset Value (NAV), or discretionary and Non-Discretionary Private Portfolio Management Services above N20 billion Assets under Management (AuM), or exposure to foreign instruments up to 40 percent of the NAV are now required to have a minimum capital of N5 billion as against N150 million.
“Any Fund and Portfolio Manager with NAV/AuM of more than N100billion should have a minimum of 10 percent of the NAV/AuM as capital,” SEC added.
For the Tier-2 fund/portfolio managers (Limited Scope) who are in the business of management of Collective Investment Schemes with limited pooled fund creation of not more than 10 times the required capital (N20 billion) on Net Asset Value (NAV), or discretionary and non-discretionary private portfolio management services of not more than N20 billion, or those exposure to foreign instruments of not more than 20 percent of the NAV, now require N2 billion as minimum capital as against low of N150 million.
Likewise, broker-dealers whose services include: client execution, proprietary trading, margin/securities lending and advisory services no longer require N300 million minimum capital to operate but N2 billion.
The SEC said the minimum capital review from 2015 low is in line with its mandate under the Investments and Securities Act 2025 to regulate and develop the Nigerian capital market.
Also, Tier 1 issuing houses who do non-interest finance services, advisory & arrangement services but no underwriting now require N2 billion as against N200 million; while Tier 2 –issuing houses with underwriting and offers a ‘one-stop-shop’ for issuers, provides underwriting services, and renders advisory and product development services require N7 billion minimum capital for this business as against N200 million.
Also, the minimum capital requirement for brokers (client execution only) has been jacked up from N200 million to N600 million, while that of dealers (proprietary trading only) has been moved from N100 million to N1 billion.
Broker-Dealers’ (client execution, proprietary trading, margin/securities lending and advisory services) has been raised from N300 million to N2 billion, while Sub-Brokers’ (Digital) from N10million to N100million; Sub-Broker (Corporate) has been increased from N10million to N50 million. Also, sub-brokers’ (Individual) now need N10 million minimum capital for the business as against N2 million while inter-dealer brokers require N2 billion as against N50 million.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigeria Police Force have forged an alliance against illegal scheme operators, investment frauds, and cryptocurrency frauds in a bid to protect the hard-earned savings and the financial dreams of the Nigerian people.
Dr Emomotimi Agama, director-general of the SEC, stated this during a meeting with Kayode Egbetokun, Inspector General of Police, held in Abuja.
Agama said the SEC, as the sentinel at the gate of Nigeria’s formal capital markets, had the mandate to protect investors, maintain fair, efficient, and transparent markets, and promote the growth of a vibrant economy built on trust, which is done by setting rules, licensing operators and market surveillance.
He, however, stated that the Commission faced adversaries who operate in the shadows, outside regulated gates by exploiting the trust of people and promising miraculous returns such as 200 per cent in 30 days.
“Currently, there is a gap, a seam between identification and enforcement that these scammers exploit. Today, we aim to close that gap permanently. Therefore, we propose a robust, institutionalised collaboration with the following pillars: Joint Intelligence and Operations Task Force: Capacity Building and Knowledge Transfer; Streamlined Processes for Enforcement and National Public Awareness Campaign,” he stated.
The SEC DG advocated, “the establishment of a dedicated SEC-NPF team that combines market intelligence, forensic accounting, and understanding of complex financial schemes with investigative and intelligence-gathering capabilities. This team will be the rapid-response unit to new frauds.”
Agama also sought the permission of the IGP to go into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Cyber Security Unit of the Police Force in a bid to ensure that cyberspace is safe for all Nigerians
In his response, the IGP Kayode Egbetokun assured the SEC team that the Nigerian police Force is ready to collaborate with the Commission, strengthen partnership in all the ways possible, and ensure that the Commission achieves its aims.
He said, “Your role in the Securities and Exchange Commission is very crucial to the Nigerian Economy, and with our supervision and support from the government, we will ensure economic recovery and growth. If the police unit in SEC is strengthened, it is going to make such an impact on your enforcement drive. What you said speaks so much to your determination to ensure effective drive in the Capital market, and when we can achieve effective enforcement, it comes with so many benefits.
Egbetokun also congratulated the Commission on the recent achievement of the N100 trillion market capitalisation mark, adding that it will aid economic growth and development.
Nigerian fintech giant, Paystack has taken its boldest step yet beyond payments, acquiring Ladder Microfinance Bank. The fintech giant has quickly rebranded its new acquisition as Paystack Microfinance Bank (MFB) in a strategic shift that could reshape how African businesses access credit, deposits, and embedded financial services.
After nearly a decade building the backbone of online payments in Nigeria, the deal gives Paystack regulatory cover to hold deposits, lend directly to businesses and offer banking-as-a-service products.
More importantly, Paystack’s chief operating officer, Amandine Lobelle, highlighted that it allows the company to exert greater control over the trillions of naira that already flow through its platform every month, turning transaction data into a powerful engine for credit and treasury products.
“After 10 years of building payment infrastructure and going deep, we realised that businesses needed more than just getting paid to grow. We wanted to leverage the expertise that we have built over the last decade to continue to address some of the pain points that businesses have,” said Lobelle.
Paystack MFB will operate as a sister company to its payments business, initially focusing on working capital loans, merchant cash advances, overdrafts and term loans for small and medium-sized enterprises.
By using real-time payment data to underwrite loans, Paystack believes it can offer faster approvals and more accurate risk pricing than traditional lenders, directly tackling Nigeria’s estimated $32 billion small business financing gap.
For Paystack, founded in 2016 and acquired by Stripe in 2020, the move marks a strategic evolution from being just a payments processor to becoming a core part of the financial operating system for African businesses.
Today, Paystack supports more than 300,000 businesses across Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa and has become one of Africa’s most trusted fintech infrastructure providers.
The banking licence is a game-changer as payments, once Paystack’s main growth engine, are increasingly commoditised across Africa. Lending, deposits and treasury services offer deeper margins, stickier relationships and long-term sustainability.
By layering banking services on top of payments, Paystack is betting that infrastructure depth will outperform flashy consumer scale.
However, the move also throws the Nigerian-born fintech giant into fierce competition with digital -first lenders and neobanks such as Moniepoint, Kuda, OPay and PalmPay, which already operate at massive scale. Still, Paystack’s strength lies in its merchant-first focus and developer-friendly APIs.
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