The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has ordered 4 fintech companies to desist from onboarding of new customers until further notice.
The affected fintechs—OPay, Palmpay, Kuda Bank, and Moniepoint. All 4 have been linked to allegations of accounts being used for illicit foreign exchange transactions.
Representatives from two of the companies confirmed to Nairametrics that the CBN’s order is related to these allegations.
They however, stated that the directive may have been misdirected, as the majority of the implicated accounts belong to commercial banks, not fintech platforms.
According to a source from one of the affected fintec companies, “I can confirm that 90% of the accounts implicated in the illicit forex transactions are with commercial banks, and only 10% are with fintechs. 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.”
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