To expand retirement coverage across Nigeria’s informal sector, pension technology startup Awabah has rolled out a new service, Pension Direct, for citizens to make micro-pension contributions at Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals nationwide.

The initiative, in partnership with MoniePoint’s fintech subsidiary, TeamApt, aims to bring millions of self-employed individuals, including market traders, artisans, transport operators, and small business owners, into the formal retirement savings network by leveraging the country’s extensive agency banking infrastructure.

Unveiled at a joint media briefing in Lagos, the platform was designed to solve long-standing accessibility challenges that have historically kept informal workers out of the National Pension Scheme.

Through the Personal Pension Plan, contributors can walk into any participating MoniePoint agent location and establish an automated debit mandate directly from their bank accounts. The system allows users to customize both the frequency and amount of their contributions based on their daily cash flow.

Chief Executive Officer of Awabah, Tunji Andrews, emphasised that reducing friction is critical to driving adoption among workers who are unaccustomed to formal financial planning.

He said: “Pension savings is already a conversation that many people are not used to. The least we can do is remove the stress. Pension Direct allows Nigerians to save where they are, how they are, and with whatever amount they can afford.”

While smartphone adoption continues to rise across West Africa, Awabah’s leadership noted that digital mobile applications alone are insufficient to reach the majority of informal workers.

“The woman selling rice in Ojota doesn’t necessarily use an app. Musa in Kano may not use an app either. But both of them use POS terminals. POS terminals are everywhere, in villages, markets, and communities where you least expect them. If we truly want pension access for everyone, then we must go to where the people already are,” he said.

Although Awabah maintains its own mobile application, Andrews clarified that digital tools will serve as a secondary option. The primary focus remains on grassroots engagement until consumers gradually become comfortable transitioning to self-service digital platforms.

To drive adoption, Awabah has set an ambitious target to onboard one million new Personal Pension Plan contributors before the end of the year.

To achieve this goal, the company has kicked off a nationwide awareness push involving roadshows, radio broadcasts, billboard advertisements, and local community mobilisation.

Andrews noted that the strategic framework for Pension Direct was drawn from micro-pension inclusion models in emerging markets like India and Ghana, where agency networks successfully broadened pension coverage beyond traditional salaried employees.

Addressing the technical execution, Implementation Manager at TeamApt Limited, Emmanuella Edeh, stated that MoniePoint’s existing infrastructure ensures secure and straightforward onboarding for users, regardless of their level of digital literacy.

Edeh explained: “We’re using the MoniePoint POS as the technology interface. The pension saver simply walks into the nearest agent location and requests the service. They don’t need to understand technology because everything is already built into the POS.”

Edeh highlighted that the partnership aligns with MoniePoint’s broader core strategy to deepen financial access across underserved communities, noting that while the rollout begins with selected agents, it will progressively expand across the entire MoniePoint network.

The initiative has garnered support from key financial inclusion advocates. Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility (SANEF), Uche Uzoebo,commended the collaboration as a major step forward in bridging structural gaps in social security.

With Nigeria’s agency banking network now exceeding two million agents, Uzoebo called on other operators across the ecosystem to replicate similar models.