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WHAT’S YOUR OPINION? POPULAR NIGERIAN BUSINESS MAN AND BILLIONAIRE DISOWNED BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER BECAUSE SHE FELL IN LOVE WITH A POOR GUY| CHECK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS.Indigenous fintech giant, Moniepoint, has become the preferred digital payments platform in Nigeria, catering to the financial needs of millions of Nigerian individuals and businesses, Business Hallmark findings have revealed. ...Tap To Read The Full Story Here | ..Tap To Read The Full Story Here...
Less than three years after it was established by a Nigerian-born entrepreneur, Tosin Eniolorunda, to provide digital financial services to millions of Nigerians lacking access to basic services including bank accounts, Moniepoint has made massive inroad into retail banking, the previously unassailable turf of traditional banks to become the admiration of many.
From Ibadan in Oyo State, to Abakaliki in Ebonyi, Akure in Ondo, Ikeja in Lagos, Maiduguri in Borno, Dutse in Jigawa, Warri and Asaba in Delta, Owerri in Imo, Wuse in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and several other towns and cities across the country, Moniepoint is now the most preferred platform for daily financial transactions.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), it would be recalled, had granted the firm a license in February 2022 to operate as a microfinance bank.
Apart from providing premium financial service to business owners as well as individuals, including electronic funds transfers, mobile payments and card-based transactions, Moniepoint started off with giving loans to small business owners to help boost their businesses.
And in less than three years of opening shop, Moniepoint had not only brushed off stiff competition from industry giants like Opay, Carbon, PalmPay and Kuda to become Nigeria’s leading payments and digital banking platforms, it has also encroached deep into the nation’s retail banking market regarded as the exclusive turf of traditional banks.
With the help of the cutting-edge services the microfinance bank offers, and large network of offline agents in every corner of the federation to attend to customers, the firm had grown to become an household name in the country, with more people embracing its products daily.
It currently operates the largest distribution network for financial services in Nigeria, with over 33 million people and businesses having access to loans and business management tools across the 774 local government in Nigeria. Also, its customers can use any of their bank-issued cards on Moniepoint terminals.
According to Moniepoint, it recruited 1.6 million businesses and 611,213 agents across the country to help onboard people without smartphones.
These highly trained agents, it was learnt, help customers to open personal accounts and issue them instant credit and debit cards that can be used to carry out financial transactions on every channel.
Expectedly, more customers, especially businesses, are daily pitching tent with Moniepoint. Available data obtained by BH indicates that Moniepoint is now the 4th largest financial institution in the country, according to customer base, with 35 million customers, coming behind only Access Bank in number one position with 49 million, UBA in 2nd with 44 million and First Bank 39 million customers.
Moniepoint also beats tier-1 category banks like Zenith Bank 33 million and GTBank 30 million to the 5th and 6th positions respectively.
According to the company, it currently processes over $17 billion monthly and $182 billion in annualized total payment volume (TPV), making it the largest fintech company in sub-Saharan Africa.
Though Moniepoint’s revenue is not in the public space since it is not a quoted company, a spokesperson for the company said its revenue for its last financial year 2023 was several hundreds of millions of dollars.
A recent survey conducted by BH in Lagos, Ogun, Bayelsa, Delta, Imo, Abia, Rivers and Enugu suggests that seven out of 10 medium scale enterprises, particularly pharmaceutical companies, eateries, supermarkets, hotels, transport companies, fuel stations, educational institutions and hospitals, among many others, now operate business accounts with the firm.
At the last count, over 10 million businesses have accounts with Moniepoint Microfinance Bank.
Some of the account holders, who spoke to our correspondent on their preference for Moniepoint, claimed that apart from the premium products offered by the financial institution, the major enticement is the fact that the bank has physical outlets where they can be traced to in the event of a possible collapse or liquidation.
“Digital platform like Opay and PalmPay are also good, but the absence of physical structures where they can be contacted if they failed is still hunting them.
“While we still use other fintechs to collect money from customers, the bulk of the money is transferred withing 24 hours to our Moniepoint accounts or conventional banks with physical branches that can not just close shops and bolt with our funds”, a pharmacist with multiple outlets on Lagos mainland told our correspondent.WHAT’S YOUR OPINION? POPULAR NIGERIAN BUSINESS MAN AND BILLIONAIRE DISOWNED BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER BECAUSE SHE FELL IN LOVE WITH A POOR GUY| CHECK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS.
Another factor that is driving more customers to Moniepoint is the lure of securing credit facilities from the firm.
Moniepoint, BH learnt, had given out several billions of naira as soft loans to many of its customers to grow their businesses.
The loans, which come with much lower interest rates compared with other fintechs, it was gathered, are very easy to secure unlike those offered by conventional banks, which come with back breaking terms and conditions.
Many customers have also flocked to the bank to enjoy its cutting-edge technology. One of such is a robust and high-speed Internet system, which ensures seamless transactions.
Unlike in traditional banks, it is very unusual to hear of transaction failures on Moniepoint platform. Where such occurs, the funds are reversed almost immediately without customers having to contact its customer support unit for help.
In the third and fourth week of November, many students and staff of McPherson University, Seriki Sotayo-Ajebo in Ogun State established by the Foursquare Church, were not able to conduct financial transactions owing to bad network.
However, transactions made on Moniepoint’s platform were going through. The situation forced many affected students and staff to open Moniepoint accounts to enjoy seamless services.
One of the affected students, who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, disclosed that she had not used any other bank platform to make transactions since migrating to Moniepoint.
Apart from cutting-edge technology and innovative products, another major factor driving the surge of the company is the dedication and drive of its experienced workforce.
BH findings revealed that Moniepoint Microfinance Bank is run by a team of veteran bankers and IT experts working to provide the most seamless and secure experience for customers using its platform.
One of the drivers of the company is its Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Bayo Olujobi, headhunted from Stanbic IBTC Bank, where he was CFO. Olujobi, who has over 20 years of experience in finance, was an executive director at Stanbic IBTC Capital, the investment arm of Stanbic IBTC Holdings before joining Moniepoint MFB.
His appointment as CFO came eight months after MFB partnered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to digitize operations for two million small and medium businesses.
He will also play a significant role in the company’s goal to onboard 30 million businesses over the next five years, as well as helping to expand its digital payments, banking, foreign exchange (FX), credit, and business management tools across Africa.
“I am really excited to have the opportunity to join Moniepoint at this time. The bank has developed an unparalleled customer proposition across the business and personal banking segments and I believe it is on the cutting edge of delivering what the consumer craves – a secure, convenient and easy platform to manage their financial lives.
“Moniepoint is right at the forefront of this movement”, Olujobi said in a press release seen by our correspondent.
In October 2024, Moniepoint achieved another feat when it attained a ‘unicorn’ status after raising $110 million from investors, including tech giant, Google.WHAT’S YOUR OPINION? POPULAR NIGERIAN BUSINESS MAN AND BILLIONAIRE DISOWNED BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER BECAUSE SHE FELL IN LOVE WITH A POOR GUY| CHECK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS.
In finance, a unicorn is a privately held startup company with a valuation of at least $1billion.
The funding round for Moniepoint, led by London-based private equity firm Development Partners International and supported by Google’s Africa Investment Fund, gave it a valuation of at least $1billion.
Speaking on the feat back in October, the bank’s CEO, Tosin Eniolorunda, said that while the organisation would continue to invest in its home market of Nigeria, it planned to use the funds to expand into other countries in Africa.
“The opportunities that exist in Nigeria also exist in multiple countries. They are at different scales and levels of development; some countries are 10 to 15 years behind Nigeria and very few are ahead.
“We are looking at options in our toolkit and findings, which ones would be the best to launch into a country and that’s the work we’re doing right now”.
A top banker in a first-generation bank, who did not want his identity revealed, described Moniepoint’s rapid rise to the top of Nigeria’s banking industry, as phenomenal.
“Though Moniepoint did not bring agency and vertical banking to Nigeria, it took it to the next level by creating niche products that serve the specific needs of relatively narrow customer segments.
“Probably due to the technical skills and experience they acquired in school and while working with Interswitch, their services are top-notch. You hardly experience a failed transaction on their platform.
“In the event of a sudden loss of network during a digital financial transaction, or when a service provider, whether cable TV, energy or airtime goes off-grid or suddenly becomes unavailable, rather than the transaction terminating as failed and customer’s funds deducted, what you will see is ‘transaction processing’.
“Anytime service is restored, the process automatically kicks off by itself from where it stopped without any prompting and you will get a ‘transaction successful’ message on your screen.
“Banks and most fintechs don’t have this advanced technology. That is why you see many failed transactions while sending money on bank apps as the transaction will be aborted and funds trapped in the event of a sudden network failure.
“Anytime we (commercial banks) think that we are about to catch up with them, they keep upping their games”, the top bank official declared.
BH recalled that Moniepoint’s short, but eventful journey to success and stardom began in 2015 when two tech wizards, Tosin Eniolorunda and Felix Ike, left banking services provider, Interswitch, to set up TeamApt.
Despite their toiling and best efforts, the break they had diligently worked for didn’t come until 2019 when its flagship product, Moniepoint, was awarded a switching license by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
More breakthroughs soon followed, with one of them being a banking license from the CBN in 2022 to provide business banking services (agency banking) to merchants operating in the country.WHAT’S YOUR OPINION? POPULAR NIGERIAN BUSINESS MAN AND BILLIONAIRE DISOWNED BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER BECAUSE SHE FELL IN LOVE WITH A POOR GUY| CHECK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS.
From that moment on, the duo have not looked back, toiling day and night to earn their rightful place in the Nigerian payments and digital banking space.…Read -T.he.Full_Article.Here.
