Congratulations on making it out of 2024, as it was quite an interesting year in which we didn’t know if battling the devil was easier than battling the economy. But as long as there’s life, there’s hope, which is why humans like me never stop the useless endeavor of predicting the future.
Take everything you read here with a pinch of salt; most won’t come to pass. But then, what if?
After all, to err is human and to predict, is human!
Let’s dive into them.
#1 CBN will lose the cash war again
Like a fighter who wouldn’t just lay flat on the ground; the Central Bank of Nigeria continues to fight agents and cash with many rules and tweaks. But as someone who knows that cash has many tricks up its sleeve, it will give the CBN another sucker punch.
Why would CBN even lose what seems to be an easy fight?
Because it’s fighting the wrong battle. The CBN is fighting the symptoms instead of the root cause – people need cash to make payments and as long as digital payments have quality and security issues that the CBN isn’t addressing holistically, agents will run rings around the CBN every single time. If the POS is limited to N100,000 per day for transactions, expect agents to migrate to mobile apps for the same thing. Who will catch them?
#2 CBN will (finally) win the fraud war
2024 was the year that, at least, looking back from today, fraud has grown up in Nigeria. Nobody seems to be able to tame it because frankly, there has been zero consequences for gatekeepers.
While I don’t think we should be blaming the victims, the banks and large fintechs’ apathy to quality KYC and CDD is a big reason for this mess. For a while, people used to ask “what have these fintechs got on the CBN guys?”. The thing was a proper kayefi.
Well, that was so until the CBN rolled out the big sticks against Opay and others. Guess what, Opay and Moniepoint are moving from careless to having some of the best KYC processes in town.
With that in place, expect CBN to take the discipline to the entire classroom and rampant fraud could be a thing of the past. Let the church shout hallelujah!
#3 Moniepoint as a commercial bank won’t happen in 2025
2 years ago, I predicted that Moniepoint would become a commercial bank and in 2024, tons of outlets ran the stories of this happening in 2025.
Maybe this is the year they get to do it? Maybe not.
It made sense 2 years ago but with increasing regulatory demands, CBN’s crazy CRR regime I don’t think will happen this year. Knowing that becoming a commercial bank isn’t like buying an MFB by the roadside; it would take a while to meet CBN’s stringent requirements and for mostly first timers, it’s going to be one hell of a ride.
#4 Virtual accounts get regulated
Virtual accounts have been the best invention out of African banking in the last 7 years. The Nigerian banks nailed it. But our fraudsters nailed it even better 😲.
Virtual accounts are the payments invention in 10 years.
As virtual accounts become the trillion-naira juggernauts, it is impossible to outlaw but with it being the best toolkit for fraudsters due to poor KYC, CBN will finally bring out an official regulation to delineate what you can use virtual accounts for and minimum KYC requirements to be added to it. Don’t be scared; the regulation wouldn’t kill this baby!
#5 Agent networks will evolve beyond payments and fraud
Agents are the most beloved hated groups in Nigeria today and it’s not difficult to see why. They help you with quick cash and also shaft you in the process. They are the destination for most of the fraud that happens in the banking ecosystem but yet, they keep all of us sane.
As the CBN and other stakeholders continue to tweak the policies to fight fraud, networks such as Moniepoint, Opay, and MTN, constantly tired of being vilified, would start evolving what you can do at an agent’s point of service beyond cash. What about getting a personal loan? Or taking delivery? Or verifying your NIN and BVN? Or this? Or that? This would work as long as the agent can make a fat margin!
#6 Open banking will go live (I’m always wrong, maybe one more time?)
Ogun Lakaye told me that if I predict this one more time, he will push the CBN to make open banking commence. This time around, I have a strong feeling that open banking will finally go live. I mean I rubbed the genie bottle, and it felt really warm. How could I be wrong?
#7 Virtual accounts go to Africa
Tons of Nigeria fintechs have made forays into Africa – LemFi, Flutterwave, Paystack*, the list goes on. Most have gone on to rule with money remittances and a few like Paystack have had a decent success with payments with cards.
But if you stepped back and asked, why wouldn’t the best thing in Nigeria be exported to these countries?
As the margins continue to dry up and the need to grow continues to put pressure; expect Nigerian fintechs, or startup founders from other African countries who have made more than enough trips to Nigeria, to launch virtual accounts.
#8 Someone cracks contactless payment
Contactless payments are next to godliness; just tap and go (to heaven, I guess). I honestly believe that if done well, it can 3x payments in Nigeria and other countries easily.
For contactless to work, it must be super-fast, work offline, and not ruin the banks or fintechs.
This has been the Golgotha where all the nice ideas are dying. However, I expect some of these smart African fintechs to break through this year. After all, where will the next growth potential come from?
#9 Nigerian startups start leveraging global opportunities
The Nigerian economy has been shattered to pieces although there some flashes of light are appearing at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully not from barreling trains.
As the economy bites, I expect some Nigerian startups to stop trying to survive but switch into using the cheaper cost of service delivery into a competitive advantage. And those who care about quality would succeed.
#10 Remittance fintechs stroll into hot soup
The margins on typical fintech services are now so thin my barber considers it super dangerous using it to shave me.
So, what are they doing?
Practically every fintech is either in remittances or planning to do so in 2025. Most of them will fail.
Until they discover that the remittance business has more minefields than the border of Ukraine and Russia. This means many of them will not be vigilant enough when bad actors use them to ferry fraud and terrorism money with regulators from the US all the way to Abuja fining most of them; sacking some of them; and a few might even get jailed.
I mean, how many remittance businesses can Africa support?
Wondering what happened the previous years and the predictions? Read about my takes for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.