THE Nigerian Senate on Wednesday opened debate on a bill to amend the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020, aiming to give the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) clear powers to designate and supervise systemically important non-bank financial institutions, particularly major fintechs whose operations now underpin the country’s financial infrastructure such as Opay, Moniepoint and digita; money lenders.
Sponsoring the bill, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, Senator Tokunbo Abiru, said the amendment had become urgent as technology-driven service providers now operated at a scale previously unseen in Nigeria’s financial system.
Abiru noted that mobile money operators, payment service banks, wallet providers, digital lenders and switching companies collectively served tens of millions of Nigerians, processing massive transaction volumes and holding extensive financial data, yet remained outside the highest tier of statutory oversight.
“A non-bank institution can, by virtue of market dominance, data concentration, customer reach or technology, pose risks equal to or greater than those posed by a traditional bank,” Mr Abiru said. “We face a regulatory gap that leaves critical parts of the financial system outside top-tier supervision. This bill seeks to correct that mischief.”
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He warned that without updating BOFIA, Nigeria risked data insecurity, foreign control of key financial infrastructure and exposures that could threaten national security. Many fintechs, he added, relied on foreign-owned networks, hosted data offshore or used cloud systems outside regulatory reach.
“We cannot say with certainty where all the financial and behavioural data processed by some of these institutions is stored, who accesses it, or which jurisdictions can assert authority over it,” he said.
Abiru referenced the temporary CBN freeze on fintech onboarding in April 2024 over Know Your Customer (KYC) breaches, money-laundering concerns and suspicious transactions, saying the episode revealed the shortcomings of current tools.
The proposed amendment outlines five objectives: creating a statutory process for designating systemically important institutions, establishing a national fintech registry, empowering the CBN with enhanced supervisory powers, strengthening data sovereignty and improving consumer protection.
He dismissed calls for a separate fintech regulator, arguing it would fragment oversight. “Fintech regulation is deeply tied to monetary policy, payments oversight and systemic-risk monitoring—all of which reside within the Central Bank,” he said. “Global best practice favours integrating fintech oversight within existing institutions.”
Former NLC President, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, contributing to the debate, recounted how his bank accounts were once hacked through a fintech platform. He argued that many online operators lacked identifiable owners who could be held accountable.
“I know the directors of our traditional banks, but I can’t say the same for these fintech banks. I don’t know the directors of Moniepoint, Opay or the others,” he said.
Oshiomhole added that stronger regulation would better protect Nigerians from fraud and operational risks.
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The Senate unanimously passed the bill for second reading and forwarded it to the Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions for further legislative work.
Opay, Moniepoint are still kings
In spite of anybody’s views, Opay and Moniepoint are kings in payment processing. Moniepoint is one of the few fintechs globally, and the first in Africa, to achieve profitability at unicorn scale. Its customer base exceeds 10 million active businesses and personal banking customers, and processes over $250 billion in digital payments transaction value annually. Also, Opay has well over 10 million customers, with some analysts estimating the number at 20 million to 50 million.
Data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS) revealed that licensed mobile money operators including Palmpay, OPay, and 15 others processed transactions valued at N71.5 trillion between January and December 2024.
Point-of-Sale (PoS) transactions across Nigeria reached a record-breaking N10.45 trillion in the first quarter of 2025, marking a 209 percent surge from N3.62 trillion in the same period last year.
