Investigations & Economy Desk
In the span of a single quarter, Nigeria’s financial ecosystem has been rewritten.
The CBN capped POS operators at ₦1.2 million daily.
FAAN outlawed cash at airports.
Tinubu’s ₦200 billion MSME Fund promises digital access to credit.
Everywhere you look, the word “cashless” now drives policy language and market confidence.
But inside that reform fever, millions of Nigerians are still negotiating access — from the vulcanizer who can’t afford a smartphone to the petty trader who depends on offline transfers that fail at peak hours.
“The system is modern,” says fintech analyst Tope Odesola, “but it’s not yet human.”
💥 SPEED MEETS SKEPTICISM
Digital finance is now Nigeria’s most aggressive economic experiment since bank recapitalisation in 2005.
Mobile money transactions hit ₦42 trillion in 2024, growing faster than GDP itself.
Yet fraud, data theft, and infrastructure gaps are ballooning at the same pace.
The new CBN POS regulation aims to weed out “ghost agents,” but it also squeezes legitimate micro-operators who rely on cash density in rural economies.
In villages where network failures persist for hours, policy looks like punishment.
At Abuja’s Garki Market, POS agent Hauwa Mohammed holds up her dead terminal.
“When the bank app crashes, I become unemployed,” she says. “How do I live in a cashless country that runs on no signal?”
⚙️ THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN NUMBERS
- Over 73 million Nigerians remain unbanked or underbanked.
- Only 43% of rural users have access to reliable 4G coverage.
- Fintech platforms processed ₦387 trillion in 2024 — but less than 12% of that reached MSMEs.
- CBN eNaira adoption remains under 2% of retail transactions.
- Average POS fraud loss: ₦9.6 billion (2024) — a 19% YoY increase.
⚡️ A NEW ORDER OF WINNERS AND THE LEFT BEHIND
The winners of the cashless revolution are clear:
banks, fintechs, and regulatory power centers.
They gain data, transaction fees, and policy leverage.
The losers are more invisible — micro-agents pushed out by compliance costs, rural consumers facing network-induced exclusion, and small traders who depend on cash liquidity.
“Inclusion means more than accounts,” says digital economist Ngozi Ajagu. “It means reliability. You can’t automate trust.”
Even the eNaira — once heralded as the ultimate symbol of financial sovereignty — has struggled for relevance, competing with faster, private fintech rails like OPay and Moniepoint.
🔥 THE BIG BUSINESS OF BEING CASHLESS
Beneath the reform lies a quiet corporate war.
Payment giants — Interswitch, Flutterwave, Paystack, and Remita — are expanding beyond transactions into digital lending, tax collection, and ID verification.
Telcos like MTN MoMo and Airtel SmartCash now behave like banks, armed with user data that rivals government records.
The Central Bank benefits too — with enhanced visibility into national liquidity, tax potential, and anti-money-laundering compliance.
For the Tinubu administration, the optics are gold: a digitally active economy is a politically sellable economy.
But this consolidation of power raises concern about surveillance, data privacy, and monopolistic behavior.
As one fintech insider told IDNN anonymously:
“Every swipe, every tap, every digital breath — it’s now traceable. Nigeria’s money is finally transparent, but maybe too transparent.”
💡 THE ROAD AHEAD — ACCESS OR EXCLUSION?
If executed right, Nigeria’s cashless reform could unlock a $100 billion digital economy by 2030.
If botched, it could widen the class divide between the connected and the disconnected.
Experts recommend a “Cashless for All” blueprint — blending digital enforcement with human empathy:
- Offline-first banking tech for low-network zones.
- Unified national fintech switch to eliminate downtime between banks.
- Agent cooperatives for shared compliance cost.
- Consumer compensation protocols for failed transactions.
The challenge is not whether Nigeria can go cashless — it’s whether it can go inclusive cashless.
This is IDNN. Independent. Digital. Uncompromising.
