MoneyBox Gets CBN’s Mobile Banking License

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has granted MoneyBox Nigeria Limited license to commence mobile banking that allow users virtually store and move money, make payments over distances and enable a host of transactions - all with the use of mobile phones, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations has shown.
For the first time in the history of the country, people would be able to purchase a bank account in a shop and anywhere they go when the company launches in April.
The landmark development is a toast to technology which has reduced the world to a global village accessible just at the click of a phone button.
With the commercial deployment of the service, MoneyBox can convert mobile phones to instant tools that would enable infinite possibilities in mobile commerce.
Everybody should be able to load money or pay money into his account from any location provided there is telephone network coverage by purchasing MoneyBox scratch card, sending the PIN to your designated bank account and then the money is credited.
The payment is acknowledged immediately via SMS.
The service is however limited to some banks at the moment because the approval given to MoneyBox by the CBN listed a number of banks.
Mr. Lai Labode, chief marketing officer, said that MoneyBox is the only system currently that tolerates competing ecosystems – it does not matter what bank or mobile network
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered the initiative can handle micro-payment handling, mobile recharging, commercial payment processing, bill payment processing, peer to peer payments, withdrawal at banking agent and deposit at banking agent.
The service is coming on the heels of World Bank’s recent report that only 18 million adults or 21 percent of the nation’s bankable population are currently banked.
The report also said that 82 percent of the rural population of Nigeria never banked; four percent previously had access to financial services, while 14 percent currently have bank accounts.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that Nigeria has enough space for other five other mobile banking licences and that the mobile money transfer market would grow up to  $78 trillion within the next five years
To be successful however, MoneyBox must ensure that the challenges of security and reliability of financial transactions executed from some remote location and transmission of financial information over the air are addressed.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that MoneyBox is counting on its experience on mobile commnerce having pioneered the innovative saving and payment system using scratch card and mobile phones.
It has PayBox. PayBox is one of the biggest payment systems in the world today, as technical partners are known.
MoneyBox is also fresh from a successful private placement last year for N1.2 billion through sale of 49per cent of its authorised shareholders’ equity to select investors