MTN NIGERIA REGAINS ₦12.5 BILLION LOST DUE TO MOBILE MONEY GLITCH AS MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS INCREASE.

MTN Nigeria, a major telecommunications provider in Nigeria, has successfully recovered more than half of the ₦22 billion lost during a glitch in its Mobile Money service in May 2022. This incident occurred just a week after the launch of the mobile money service, shedding light on the extent of fraud in Nigeria’s financial services sector.

While ₦12.5 billion ($7.85 million) has been recovered thus far, the remaining ₦9.5 billion ($5.97 million) will be absorbed by MTN Nigeria due to a shared services cost agreement between the telecom company and the MoMo service. According to the 2023 financial statement, MTN Nigeria has fully provisioned for this amount.

MoMo adoption is still on the rise in Nigeria, with the business evolving more slowly than expected, as reported by TechCabal. In the 2023 full-year report, Toriola, CEO of MTN Nigeria, attributed the sluggish development to delays in regulatory approvals from the Central Bank and challenges faced by many potential customers in meeting the NIN requirement for Know Your Customer (KYC).

Despite these setbacks, Toriola expressed satisfaction with the progress in building the MoMo PSB wallet base, noting that monthly active users had increased from 3.3 million in the previous year to 5.3 million. This growth was supported by 326,000 MoMo agents and 324,000 merchants within its ecosystem.

MoMo PSB is optimistic about expanding its reach through consumer education and leveraging its distribution network. The fintech aims to introduce cross-border remittances to enhance adoption and monetization. Toriola added, “We will leverage the momentum from Q4 to accelerate the growth of wallets and adoption of services as we expand our merchant ecosystem.”

Joseph Olaoluwa; From the News Source: TechCabal