Nigeria’s active bank accounts increased to 79.28 million in December 2019, thanks to the additional 8.1 million accounts that became active, data from Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) shows.
 
Despite the 11.33 percent surge in active banks accounts last year, the country with 40 million unbanked population reported 45.57 million dormant accounts. While Nigeria recorded a total of 124.85 million bank accounts in the year under review 36.5 percent of the accounts were inactive.
 
BusinessDay analysis of the NIBSS data revealed that the dormant bank accounts reported last year reduced slightly by 1.32 million compared to the 46.89 million the previous year…
 
More details through:
https://businessday.ng/financial-inclusion/article/nigeria-records-11-increase-in-active-bank-accounts-but-45m-remain-dormant/

Singapore’s family-run Tolaram Group made much of its $1.8 billion fortune in cereals, noodles and infrastructure in Africa. Now, it’s planning to use its global reach and local relationships to move into digital banking there.
 
The group has a blueprint of sorts from another business it owns -- PT Bank Amar Indonesia. Bank Amar is largely a digital institution, with loans and deposits for consumers handled over mobile phones. The publicly listed group has loaned almost $300 million to around 300,000 customers and expects advances to increase more than 50% this year.
 
Africa shares some of the same characteristics. Non-traditional players without the legacy costs of established lenders are setting up digital banks to serve millions of smartphone-savvy customers. In 2018, the World Bank estimated as many as 95 million unbanked adults in Sub-Saharan Africa received cash payments for agricultural products, and about 65 million saved money using semi-formal methods…
 
More details through:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-09/singapore-family-extends-africa-noodle-empire-into-digital-banks

Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria has said that between the last three and five years, it has invested over $3 billion in technology in its efforts to promote growth of digital banking.
 
David Idoru, Head of Retail Banking, Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria, who stated this in a report tagged ‘The Rise of Nigeria’s Invisible Bank,’ said: “When we looked at the recent NIBSS report, total number of bank accounts as at September 2019 was 123.9 million; with total number of active accounts at 74.7 million, and total number of active bank customers (individuals) at 69.0 million. The importance of quick access to finance cannot be undervalued and with financial exclusion still, a barrier in Nigeria – only a digital innovation in banking can influence growth in the sector.
 
“While the obvious financial inclusion challenge is something we are keen to addressing, we ask ourselves, is this a problem that digital banking and innovation can solve? Yes, it certainly is. To buttress this, a report demonstrated that 59 percent of Nigerian customers prefer digital methods of banking, with only about 15 percent still fixed on the traditional form…
 
More details through:
https://www.newtelegraphng.com/digital-banking-stanchart-invests-over-3bn-in-technology/
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Flutterwave, an Africa-focused financial-technology company, said it raised $35 million and will work in partnership with WorldPay and Visa as it seeks to expand across Africa.
 
The startup founded in 2016 and based in San Francisco, will become the African payment provider for Worldpay’s clients worldwide, it said Tuesday in an emailed statement. “We are excited to be working with our newest commercial partners, Visa and WorldPay FIS, and investors to build the dominant payments platform in Africa,” Flutterwave’s Chief Executive Officer Olugbenga Agboola said Tuesday in an emailed statement…
 
More details through:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-21/nigeria-payment-firm-flutterwave-gets-35-million-funding

More Nigerians are embracing the convenience of using smartphones for mobile money transfers as it rose by 463 percent in the full year of 2019, a BusinessDay analysis shows. According of data obtained from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement…
 
More details through:
https://businessday.ng/exclusives/article/mobile-transfer-volumes-surge-by-463-in-2019-as-more-nigerians-go-digital/
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​2020 starts off on a good note, with Ghanaian Fintech startup KudiGO officially opening an office in Nigeria. KidiGO builds comprehensive and reliable financial models to help businesses receive payments and track inventories (https://bit.ly/35zoLsv). This movement follows on from the great year the Fintech sector had in 2019 as Nigeria stood out as the top destination for VC investment, recording USD 663.24 MN in total funding garnered. The top two deals were from the Fintech sector (among the other 32 deals recorded in the sector) but more importantly 50% of the total companies that raised USD 1Mn and more in Nigeria were Fintech companies. (https://bit.ly/35zoLsv)

TOTAL net asset of collective investment schemes and funds in Nigeria has risen by N348 billion to $2.76 billion (N993 billion), an increase of about 54 per cent in a year.
 
Official reports coordinated by Nigeria’s apex capital market authority, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), indicated increasing recourse to formal fund management by Nigerians but most Nigerians appeared to favour less risky, interest-yielding fixed-income financial assets…
 
More details through:
https://thenationonlineng.net/nigerias-investment-funds-hit-n993b/
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Nigerians usage of bitcoin has continued to rise despite warnings by the Central Bank of Nigeria that digital currencies are not legal tender.
 
The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria disclosed this in its release on ‘The Nigerian Banker’, in its December 2019 edition.
 
Part of its report on digital currencies read, “The CBN has also declared that digital currencies are not legal tender with naira as the sole legal tender…
 
More details through:
https://punchng.com/nigeria-named-among-highest-new-users-of-bitcoin/
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Nigeria’s central bank plans to license more payment providers in an effort to improve the country’s financial-inclusion rate to 80% by the end of next year from about 60%.
 
“The provision of licenses to several players will help support innovation and competition as all parties work to increase their customer base,” Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele said in a speech in Abuja on Friday. “Nigerians in underserved locations will have access to cost effective payment services, cash-in and cash-out facilities, and savings products…
 
More details through:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-30/nigeria-to-allow-more-payment-providers-to-boost-banking-access

Zenith Bank Plc has emerged as the best digital bank in Nigeria in the 2019 Consumer Digital Banking Satisfaction Index Report released by Agusto and Co, a pan-African rating agency.
 
The Consumer Digital Banking Satisfaction Index report highlights customers’ preferences and attitude towards digital banking platforms provided by banks in the country. The objective of the index was to create an independent appraisal of the ease of using digital banking platforms by the Nigerian populace following increased competition by banks on digital platforms as well as the growing quest for financial inclusion using digital means.
 
https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/11/08/zenith-bank-best-digital-bank-says-agusto-co/
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