The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has said that Point of Sales (PoS) agents of major fintechs in Nigeria including OPay, Palmpay, and Moniepoint, among others, must have registered their businesses by July 7, 2024.
The registrar-general of the CAC, Hussaini Magaji, who disclosed this in a statement issued by the Commission, said this was the agreement with the PoS operators after a meeting in Abuja.
According to him, the registrations is also in line with the legal requirements and the directives of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Magaji said the timeline for the registration was not targeted at any groups or individuals but genuinely aimed at protecting businesses. He further stressed that the action was equally backed by Section 863, Subsection 1 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, CAMA 2020 as well as the 2013 CBN guidelines on agent banking.
According to the statement, special adviser to President Bola Tinubu on ICT development and innovation, Tokoni Igoin Peter, in his remarks at the meeting, pledged to ensure smooth facilitation of the process in line with the Renewed Hope Initiative of the present administration.
“Several speakers from the fintech industry pledged to collaborate with the Commission to ensure hitch-free implementation of the directive. “Some of them, however, stressed the need for adequate and collective sensitisation to ensure that the exercise achieved the desired results,” the CAC said in its statement.
CAC disclosed that fintechs represented at the meeting include Opay, Momba; Palmpay Ltd.; Paystack, Fairmoney Micro Finance Bank; Moniepoint, and Teasy Pay. It added that the highlight of the event was the signing of a document by the representatives to support the project.
According to the 2023 Annual Fraud Landscape report released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) PoS channels were reported to be one of the most exploited payment channels by fraudsters in 2023. NIBSS’ data further revealed that losses to PoS fraud jumped to N4.4 billion in 2023 from N2.6 billion in 2022.
Also, data from the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) revealed that in Q2 2023, there were 1,994 cases of PoS fraud in Nigeria resulting in a loss of N428 million. Figures from the same quarter in previous years show that PoS fraud had consistently risen. Various reports have indicated that the increase in the usage of PoS for transactions will continue to drive an increase in fraud through the channel. However, having the operators registered as business entities is expected to reduce the incidence of fraud in the business.
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