I have no problem with consumer protection. In fact, it’s something I’ve been waiting to see for years in Nigeria and across other African countries. For the longest time, the lending industry here has been like the Wild West, with very little in the way of rules or safeguards for ordinary people. Kenya was one of the first to put clear regulations in place for digital lending, introducing the Digital Credit Providers Regulations in 2022, which set standards for licensing, fees, and borrower rights. So when Nigeria’s FCCPC rolled out its new law on lending practices, I genuinely felt some relief. It finally looked like someone was stepping in to bring order to the chaos and give borrowers the confidence that they weren’t completely on their own. And if you know anything about how Nigeria works, you’ll understand why this feels like such a big deal. We’re used to institutions looking the other way when it comes to the struggles of everyday people, so seeing a regulator actively plant itself in the corner of borrowers deserves some credit. The FCCPC earned its applause on that one.
But once the excitement settled, I had to pause and really think about what this all means in practice. I’ve spent enough time in this space to know that even the best-intentioned laws can take on a life of their own. Protecting borrowers makes sense, and there’s no debate about whether it is necessary, but the way people actually use those protections is where things start to get murky. What I’ve started to notice is a creeping attitude among some borrowers that these rules are now a shield to hide behind, almost like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Instead of seeing consumer protection as a safety net against abuse, some are treating it as a licence to misbehave. And to be clear, I’m not speculating here, I’ve seen it happening already.
This is the part that worries me, because once people realise that the system tilts heavily in their favour, the temptation to game it becomes too strong. Borrowers start defaulting with a straight face, brushing off their obligations as if the law has given them cover. They conveniently forget that every unpaid loan doesn’t just hurt a lender; it also makes credit harder and more expensive for everyone else who might genuinely need it. That’s the danger of a one-sided protection model. It begins with noble intentions, but if left unchecked, it ends with a broken system that serves no one well.
Africa is catching up on consumer protection finally
Nigeria is not the only country waking up to this conversation. Across the continent, regulators are starting to take a harder look at how lending works and what protections borrowers deserve. In Kenya, for example, the Central Bank of Kenya amended its regulations in 2021 to bring digital lenders under direct supervision, requiring them to disclose all fees upfront and banning the practice of debt shaming. South Africa has had its National Credit Act since 2005, which created the National Credit Regulator and set rules around affordability checks, fair interest rates, and even the right for borrowers to challenge unfair credit agreements. Ghana recently passed the Borrowers and Lenders Act in 2020, which established a legal framework for credit agreements and gave the Bank of Ghana authority to license and monitor lenders. Even in Tanzania and Uganda, where digital credit is newer, you now see requirements for lenders to register with central banks and follow rules on interest disclosures. For a region that has historically left borrowers at the mercy of whoever had the cash, this growing wave of credit-specific protections is a real shift, and it is encouraging to see it spreading.
Where the challenge begins, however, is in how these protections are interpreted once they leave the pages of regulation and meet real people on the ground. On paper, the goal is simple: defend borrowers from exploitation. Regulators are standing up and saying, “You will not be cheated, harassed, or bullied when you borrow money.” That is a noble and necessary message. But human behaviour is never that straightforward. Once borrowers realise that there is now a safety net that can shield them, some start to test the limits. I have personally seen situations where people take loans with no serious plan to repay, and when the lender comes knocking, the borrower boldly leans on the regulator’s rules as cover. Loan obligations suddenly become optional, something to get around if possible, since the law is assumed to be firmly on their side.
This is where I start to get uneasy, because protections that were designed to restore fairness can easily turn into weapons for irresponsibility. When borrowers begin to act like regulators are there to punish lenders on their behalf, the balance of the system gets lost. The slope is gradual but very real: a few defaults ignored here, some abuse of the rules there, and before long, borrowing culture itself becomes toxic. If this trend continues, it will not just be lenders who suffer. The very people these laws are meant to protect will find that credit dries up, because no one is willing to take the risk anymore.
Borrowers aren’t always the saints in this story
The uncomfortable truth is that many of the ugly practices we see in lending did not just appear out of thin air. When a lender blasts someone’s contact list or sends threatening messages to their relatives, as crude and damaging as those actions are, they usually stem from a borrower who has refused to repay what they owe. I am not excusing those tactics in any way, because they harm the industry, destroy trust, and ultimately push regulators to come down harder on everyone. But if we are going to have a serious conversation about consumer protection, we cannot skip over the fact that a huge number of these conflicts begin with a loan that was never repaid.
Yes, there are absolutely lenders who operate in bad faith. Some deliberately sneak in hidden fees, inflate interest rates, or design repayment schedules that they know will trip up the borrower. Those businesses are exploitative, and they deserve the scrutiny regulators throw at them. But focusing only on bad lenders tells only half the story. There is another reality, one that regulators rarely talk about: borrowers who collect loans with no genuine plan to pay back. Over the years and even more recently than you’d think, i’ve come across borrowers who take out multiple loans from different digital platforms in the same week, juggling them as if it were free cash. Some default the moment the funds hit their account, knowing that recovery is messy and regulators will step in if the lender pushes too hard. These are not isolated cases, they are patterns that chips away at the very foundation of credit.
If consumer protection is to be credible, it cannot just draw lines around lenders while leaving borrowers free of responsibility. A system where only one side is accountable is already broken. Borrowers need to understand that protections are meant to shield them from abuse, not from responsibility. If you take out a loan in good faith but run into genuine hardship, then yes, you deserve protection, mediation, and even restructuring options. But if you deliberately game the system, hiding behind regulations while treating repayment as optional, you poison the pool for everyone else. What eventually happens is that lenders start pulling back, tightening requirements, or leaving the market entirely, and the very people who lose out are the honest borrowers who suddenly have fewer or no options left.
This is why I believe consumer protection has to be framed as a two-way street. Borrowers cannot keep expecting regulators to fight their battles while ignoring their own obligations. If regulators really want to build a healthy credit culture, they need to make it clear that protection is earned through good faith. Those who exploit the system should face consequences, just as much as predatory lenders do. Otherwise, we are left with a system that rewards irresponsibility and punishes those who are actually trying to do the right thing.
Why digital lenders exist in the first place
The rise of digital lenders in Africa did not come out of nowhere. It was born out of a frustrating reality that traditional banks created and then ignored. Walk into a commercial bank in Senegal and try asking for a personal loan, and you’ll quickly discover that the system was never built with ordinary people in mind. First, you face a mountain of paperwork. Then, there’s the demand for collateral that you don’t have. After that comes the long back and forth that can drag on for weeks, with no guarantee that you’ll ever get the money. And most times, after all that trouble, the final answer is still no.
This story repeats itself across the continent. In Kenya, if you need cash urgently on a Saturday evening to rush someone to the hospital, you already know the bank will not even pick up your call. In Zambia, if a medical emergency strikes on a Friday night, you’re fucked. In Senegal, when school fees are due at the end of the month, banks are not lining up to help parents meet that deadline. For small businesses, it is even worse. An SME founder trying to raise quick capital to keep operations afloat in Nigeria is simply on their own.
The only people answering in those moments were digital lenders. They built a system that actually shows up when people need money the most, whether it’s for survival, school, or business. And that is why borrowers turned to them in their millions. Using mobile phones and tech, they made credit accessible to people who had never had the chance before. SMEs could buy inventory without waiting for a loan committee. Parents could pay fees at the very last moment. Families dealing with health emergencies could find help, even at night.
And this is why the conversation around consumer protection matters so much. When regulations lean too heavily toward shielding borrowers without balancing accountability, digital lenders start asking themselves whether the risk is even worth it. Running a lending business is not charity, and when repayment becomes uncertain while rules make recovery nearly impossible, many lenders eventually leave. Regulators may celebrate wins on paper, but the people who end up stranded are the same borrowers they wanted to protect. The parent looking for school fees will have no options. The small business needing working capital will be left to plead with banks that never wanted them in the first place. That is the irony: in trying to protect borrowers, we risk cutting them off from the only credit they have ever had access to.
If I were in charge
The harsh truth we must all come to terms with is how consumer protection should never be one-sided. It cannot work if it’s built on the assumption that lenders are always the predators and borrowers are always the prey. The reality is much more complicated. Borrowers absolutely need safeguards against lenders who charge outrageous fees, hide terms, or harass people during collections.
Those practices wear down trust and make credit dangerous instead of useful. But protection also comes with responsibility. If someone takes a loan, there has to be a clear understanding that repayment is not optional. You can put all the protective barriers in place for fairness, yet the foundation of credit still rests on the borrower keeping their word and paying back what they owe.
I would even go as far as saying regulators should create a mechanism for lenders to flag habitual defaulters. If lenders can be blacklisted for bad practices, why can’t serial defaulters face the same thing? Accountability should cut both ways. Otherwise, we are just encouraging a culture of irresponsibility that eventually destroys the credit system.
Now, don’t get me wrong. If I were running the FCCPC in Nigeria, or the equivalent bodies in Kenya, Ghana, or South Africa, I’d still enforce every single protection against abuse. Nobody deserves to be bullied, humiliated, or trapped in unfair loan terms. But alongside that, I’d add a firm and practical layer of borrower accountability. That means making sure consumer protection cannot be twisted into a free pass for irresponsibility. If lenders are expected to meet clear rules and standards, borrowers should too.
Because at the end of the day, the role of a regulator is to keep the system fair for both borrowers and lenders, not to tilt everything in favor of one side. Lenders will only continue to lend when there is confidence that what goes out will come back. And that requires telling borrowers, in no uncertain terms, that protection is available, but it comes with responsibility. If you take a loan, you must be ready to pay back.
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