By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Katsina (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Central Bank Nigeria (CBN) on Monday disclosed that total mobile money transactions since inception in January 2012 has now hit over N430 billion, according to Musa Itopa Jimoh, CBN’s head, payment system policy and oversight division, banking and payment system department.
Jimoh disclosed this at the 2014 workshop organised by the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) for business editors and finance correspondents association of Nigeria (FICAN) with the theme: ‘’Recent Developments in the Nigerian Banking System’’.
He said the CBN can tell the number of mobile money agents operating in Nigeria and all the transactions, as at date.
‘’The Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN) can tell you the number of mobile money agents we have in Nigeria and all the transactions, as at date, we have 78,000 agents in the country and 15 million subscribers, as at today we have 21 Mobile money operators as companies.
As at today all the 21 mobile money operators are doing transactions above N14 million on a monthly basis and since January 2012 when we commenced the operation, they have done over N430 billion worth of transactions,’’ the CBN’s head, payment system policy and oversight division affirmed.
In his paper entitled ‘’Overview of Mobile Payments Services Framework in Nigeria’’ he revealed that because many Nigerians don’t even trust their money in the bank not to talk of trusting the money in their phone, that is the reason the CBN introduced the concept of the agents.
While introducing his paper, he noted that the CBN in 2009 outlined regulatory framework to provide the enabling environment for the operations of mobile money organisations to provide payments services through mobile telephony.
According to Jimoh, there are three (3) types of agents, the super agent, sub-agent and sole agent. He said the super agent is the one that has several agents working with under him as sub-agents, while the sole agent stands alone.
He further affirmed operators as super agents must approach the central bank for a license because they will have so many agents working under them. ‘’ The important thing is that the mobile money agency business will create so many job opportunities in Nigeria,’’ the CBN’s head, payment system policy and oversight division added.
Jimoh gave reasons the CBN excluded TELCOs from leading any of the mobile money scheme models for various reason; one of which he said the TELCOs are not regulated by CBN but Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
