CBN stops Moniepoint, Palmpay, Opay, Kuda from onboarding new customers following alleged illicit foreign exchange transactions

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a directive to four fintech companies, instructing them to temporarily stop onboarding new customers until further notice.

The fintech companies that were mentioned earlier are OPay, Palmpay, Kuda Bank, and Moniepoint.

There are claims that these companies’ accounts were involved in illicit foreign exchange transactions.

Representatives from two of the companies confirmed to Nairametrics that the CBN’s order is related to these allegations.

However, they noted that the directive might be misdirected, as the majority of the implicated accounts belong to commercial banks, not fintech platforms. This development was initially reported by TechCabal which Nairametrics can corroborate.

“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,” one of the sources explained.