Four Nigerian fintech companies have been directed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to suspend onboarding new customers.
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The affected fintech are OPay, Palmpay, Kuda Bank, and Moniepoint.

This directive comes amidst investigations into allegations that accounts on these platforms have been used for illegal foreign exchange transactions.

A representative from two of the affected companies confirmed the CBN’s order is linked to these accusations.
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However, they noted that the directive might be misdirected, as the majority of the implicated accounts belong to commercial banks, not fintech platforms.

“I can confirm that 90% of the accounts implicated in the illicit forex transactions are with commercial banks, and only 10% are with fintechs,” one of the sources said.

“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.”
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