Four Nigerian fintech companies have been directed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to suspend onboarding new customers.
The affected fintech are OPay, Palmpay, Kuda Bank, and Moniepoint.
This directive comes amidst investigations into allegations that accounts on these platforms have been used for illegal foreign exchange transactions.
A representative from two of the affected companies confirmed the CBN’s order is linked to these accusations.
However, they noted that the directive might be misdirected, as the majority of the implicated accounts belong to commercial banks, not fintech platforms.
“I can confirm that 90% of the accounts implicated in the illicit forex transactions are with commercial banks, and only 10% are with fintechs,” one of the sources said.
“Why then has the CBN not extended this directive to the commercial banks? We face a widespread issue here, and targeting fintechs seems like an unfair focus on the more vulnerable targets.”
