It is all coming together now as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) prepares to issue the first set of licenses to mobile money providers that would provide services to the under-banked and under served segments of the country, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.
There were flurry of activities at the apex bank at the weekend as applicants besieged the CBN in Abuja to tidy their documentations.
The applicants met with official s of the apex bank and defended their proposals which cover technical, financial projections, risk management and settlement issues that must be surmounted before licenses are granted.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that risk management and settlement issues seem to be high on the agenda of the CBN.
Some of the applicants who shared some insights with us were however not forthcoming on license announcement dates.
Abayomi Atoloye, director Banking Operations, CBN had in an earlier interview with this newspaper said that no operator was licensed yet for mobile money services.
He said the apex bank will soon start issuing licenses to operators who are expected to leverage on the ubiquity of the mobile phone and the interoperability of the technology to provide easy to use and secure mechanism for millions of people nationwide.
The apex bank had in June 2009 released the mobile payment guidelines and the general misconception is that one or two operators have the license and are yet to activate their services.
What can however be confirmed is that some bank-led consortia like UBA, Stanbic IBTC, First Bank and others are in the provisional list to be released by the CBN .
Elsewhere, independent led model like Cash 2 Card, Easi Pay and Mtech are also on the list.
Already, Moneybox Africa, a licenced mobile banking provider recently launched services in Lagos.
With the license, a mobile payment provider can provide mobile banking, payment and associated services using agent networks and using the mobile phone as a means of authentication.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the CBN is very keen to licence providers in Nigeria where millions are excluded from formal financial services.
But most of the potential players are still skeptical about the role of mobile network operators and access to their network resources.
Emmanuel Okoegwale, of MobileMoneyAfrica explained that though the fears are genuine efforts are being made to address.
He said that some of the initiatives are the third party regulatory framework which Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) is party to.
According to him, this will address the fears of stakeholders with Mobile Network Operators (MNO’s) since NCC can enforce certain aspects of the regulatory document where the CBN is hamstrung.
Okoegwale also said major issues like Unstructured Supplementary Services Data (USSD) access, generally associated with real-time or instant messaging type phone services, will be sorted out in the next few months by Clickatell
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that Nigeria is at the threshold of Mobile Money Transfer and Payment, a new revolution that is potentially more profound than the arrival of mobile phones in the country but this time sweeping and exponential.
Hailed as the next big bang, mobile payment industry will change the way consumers interact with financial services and make payments and the major plank will be the mobile phone.
With only 22 million bank accounts and less than10, 000 bank branches for 140 million citizens, mobile payments will reach over 80 million mobile phone holders and million others that do not have access to formal financial services in urban and rural areas.
