Category: General

Read about Adedeji’s take on technology, payments, financial inclusion, career, and credit.

mCash would change the future of payments in Nigeria

mCash, leveraging USSD, revolutionizes payments in Nigeria. Available to 28 million users, it bypasses POS challenges with instant settlements and broad accessibility, potentially transforming electronic payments nationwide.

The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), along with numerous banks, have launched mCash as an alternative payment system in the populous country in Africa.
mCash rides on USSD and anyone can easily use the code to make payments at large stores, corner shops, etc. The mCash payment system, which is automatically available to over 28 million account holders in Nigeria, can be used with any smart or feature phone.
The Central Bank of Nigeria has been pushing electronic payments in Nigeria for years. The elaborate program, dubbed Cash-less Nigeria, was driven massively in partnership with banks, switches, schemes and other stakeholders. The results have been fantastic as electronic payments in Nigeria is on a tear.

Despite the massive success of the Cash-less Nigeria program, merchant payments using Point of Sales (POS) terminals have not been as successful. Payments at POS terminals have been bedeviled with a lot of issues: High cost of terminals, which has been exacerbated by the devalued Naira. Poor telco data/GPRS infrastructure. Overregulation of participation and fees, which has made the business to be highly unprofitable. The list of issues goes on.
It was no surprise that banks started pulling back. Many at times, merchants desirous of having terminals are not given because they may not have enough transactions to allow the banks breakeven.
Not deterred by these, NIBSS and some banks rallied around to design a new payment system which would latch on to the recent success of the USSD banking in Nigeria.

Rising from the ashes of mobile money in Nigeria, another failed experiment in the quest for a cashless society, banks quickly repurposed their USSD codes to connect directly to bank accounts instead of mobile wallets. As the average Nigerian is already used to using USSD codes to load airtime or select call back tunes, there was an immediate affinity. USSD banking in Nigeria now has more users than all other channels apart from payment cards.

The mCash payment system allows account holders to dial their bank codes or a special general purpose code and then pay any merchant. The paying customers and merchants do not need to be with the same bank. The transactions ride on the existing NIBSS Instant Payment infrastructure. Merchants get settled instantly instead of waiting until the next day as it would be for POS transactions. Banks do not need to create additional back office processes as the payment transactions are treated like regular NIP transfer payments.

Even the merchants love the new system as they would not need to pay interchange or MSC.
This is a new payment system and the jury is still out on how transformational it could be. It has all the potentials of a successful platform: reach, ease of use and cost to merchants.

Understanding the MMM Absurdity

My recent post on MMM Ponzi drew mixed reactions. On Bella Naija, I was roasted with vitriolic comments. On LinkedIn, most agreed MMM is a scam. Simulation shows a 2,230% return is absurd. Let’s see how it goes.

My recent post on MMM Ponzi drew divergent responses. On Bella Naija, my backside was practically roasted with the vitriolic comments from those who feel that MMM is a divine intervention. After all, why is it my problem if someone wants to start a bonfire with his money?

On LinkedIn, the responses are direct opposite. Almost everyone agreed that MMM is a scam and only a stupid person would do it. Of course, there are few guys on LinkedIn who share the opinion that it isn’t my problem.
Truth be told, it is really not my problem.

But then, the troublemaker in me wouldn’t just roll over and die. How else can I describe the absurdity of MMM but to do a simulation of the investment with hyper-return?

So, let’s say James, a friend of mine, decides to “invest” N1,000,000 in MMM by January 2017. If he doesn’t touch the money and keeps re-investing capital and interest, this is what he gets by January 1, 2018. A stratospheric 2,230% return!

Initial Seed1,000,000
January1,300,000
February1,690,000
March2,197,000
April2,856,100
May3,712,930
June4,826,809
July6,274,852
August8,157,307
September10,604,499
October13,785,849
November17,921,604
December23,298,085
 2,230%

My birthday is January, and considering I would be hitting a major milestone in 2018, I should expect a fantastic gift from James, right? Wrong! I can bet that James would be dead-ass broke by then.

Trust me, if such a guarantee return exists, all we need Buhari to do is ask Aunty Kemi, the Minister of Finance, to put in about N100B and he can use the N2.3 trillion Nigeria would get by January 2018 to fix Lagos-Ibadan Express road, fund the outstanding salaries of the APC governors’ states, build 3 more refineries and drop in about N200B for 2018 investment. Come 2019, we will have N4.6B to spend. It’s election year and we will return Buhari with all happiness.

For me, I can put in N10M and just chill for a year; a year’s wait doesn’t kill anyone. With N232M, I can make a foray into real estate and live the rest of my pipe dream life in luxury.

It doesn’t make sense right? Yes, it doesn’t!

MMM Ponzi – There is always a Mugu in Lagos!

I found that MMM, a Ponzi scheme, is now one of Nigeria’s top websites. Despite past scams like Nospecto, people still fall for these. MMM will inevitably collapse.

I was doing a random research of recent and stumbled on the current list of top websites in Nigeria (October 2016). The list is dominated by the usual names – Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Nairaland, Linda Ikeji and MMM Office. Wait, what’s MMM Office?

It’s a Ponzi scheme and it has its own Wikipedia page. It has taken Nigeria by storm, so much some people are almost selling their cousins just to invest money there. The relevant authorities have however turned a blind eye, for now.  The Guardian Newspaper recently wrote about it; the comments from Nigerians would make you weep!

It’s amazing that 10 years after I wrote about Ponzi schemes in Nigeria, and that it would come back again, it actually did. Wait, does that make me a prophet? Of course, I’m not. If I was, I wouldn’t be blogging but flying my own private A380 around the world.

Deji, can you just concentrate? Focus!

10 years ago Nospecto ravaged Nigeria with promises of 106% return per annum. I remember quite a number of friends and colleagues (luckily no family members) piled in their salaries into the deal expecting a big payout because they knew someone who knew the cousin of the uncle of someone who got a payout. I’m lost!

It got so bad that many account officers of a certain bank used their customers’ money to do kalokalo. The bank later perished but it wasn’t because of this. I mean, who knows?

But that wasn’t even bad enough. Penny Wise came out with a scheme that blew my hat off!  This is how it worked. You give them a paltry N2,500 for a slot and over a period of 9 weeks, the scheme will pay out a cumulative of N251,390. Effectively, you multiply any amount you put inside by 100 in 9 weeks. Interesting!

I blogged about it and someone even said I would die of poverty! The vitriol was so caustic! I didn’t die, I’m not poor either but he got scammed.
Anyway, like all pyramids go, the bubble burst and the schemes went tits up.

It’s 2016 and MMM is the new King of Ponzi. Everyone is on it.
Everybody knows my stand on Ponzi schemes – if you do it, I cut off all ties with you. I have absolutely no apologies. Before you get your guns and take potshots, two reasons for my stance:

You sincerely believe that the MMM Ponzi Scheme is real
It means you lack an analytical brain and would walk right into an oncoming truck believing it’s Lego. I know some Ponzi schemes may appear legit and you need investment banking grade knowledge to unravel it. That’s understandable and if the illegality is explained to you, at least, you can comprehend and run for dear life. However, if you earnestly believe that MMM stands for something legit and logical, then you are probably not smart enough to be trusted with anything important.

You know that MMM is a Ponzi but want to take advantage
Ponzi schemes are as illegal as they come. Well, not as illegal as shooting someone or doing some of the things Donald Trump joked about. To take advantage of illegality just for the money means you are greedy, desperate and can do anything for money.

You are probably not someone I can trust with anything important.
I don’t run a business but I know that if a staff of mine does MMM, he’s on his way out.

I can bet my next month salary that the MMM Ponzi will collapse soon – either from its own weight or when the Central Bank moves in like they did 10 years ago.

See you in 2026
Well, I would be back in 10 years’ time to talk about the next Ponzi scheme. There will always be a Mugu in Lagos.

Addendum
I wrote the following articles 10 years ago. I didn’t have anyone to help proof-read then so be careful of the grammatical errors – don’t read aloud as you could choke.
NOSPETCO: A Classic Ponzi Scheme
Pennywise HYIB: The king of Absurdity
Original article on BellaNaija.com

5 mistakes I made mentoring

Everyone needs a mentor, but being one isn’t always easy. I’ve made my fair share of mistakes along the way, and here are five that have taught me invaluable lessons.

There is no greater joy, for me, than helping others achieve their career potentials. I’ve few things that really make me happy; mentoring is right there at the top. Followed by beans cooked in red oil. And then èbà with èfó rirò.

Just like my mentees, the mentoring journey has taught me quite a number of interesting things which I think would be nice to share with others who may want to annoy their younger friends and colleagues in the name of mentoring.

The joy of coaching others doesn’t mean it comes easy to me and those I mentor.  In fact, I could be very exasperating while trying to help others: I’ve heard phrases like “Na by force?”, “Na fight?”, “E don do!”

I’ve made a gazillion mistakes helping others achieve their dreams but the following 5 stand out remarkably.

My aspiration is not yours
When I was younger I wanted to be everything – from piloting a plane, to going to the moon and every random career in between. I finally found myself studying engineering in the university, which I barely excelled at, and eventually ended up a banker.

Guess what? I wanted all my mentees to work in banks. I extolled how banking is a nice career, how you could move up and own half of Banana Island.
Utter rubbish!

Luckily, I learned quickly that as a mentor, my job is to help my mentees achieve or exceed their life’s goals and aspirations. Instead of shoehorning my own myopic career ideas into their already jaded brains, I started listening to them, discussing their ambitions and helping them move towards that.

Professional career is everything
I used to look down on people who wanted to do things that don’t fit into my narrow view of professional careers. How stupid I was!

Luckily nobody has been hurt yet as I never had the chance to force people talented in non-professional inclination into suits and ties. Imagine the damage I could have done to Usain Bolt if his mum was my cousin? He would probably be slaving his backside at some law firm now.

I’ve since understood that success comes in different flavors and at the beginning those who don’t want to be professionals may look different from me but it doesn’t mean they don’t know what they want to do.

Careers and family are zero sum
A colleague told a friend of mine that she thought I was cold to her because she wanted to get married. That wasn’t the reason but it showed how bad my view about family and career used to be.

To have an outstanding career, something has to give, but mine was on the extreme side.

It took a long time for me to come around to the fact that you can have a good family life and an outstanding career. It is going to be tough but tough things are what successful people do.

Competing with mentees
Sometimes I set goals for my mentees and I to achieve and most times I beat them hands down. It never had the right effect.

Mentees look up to me for strength not as competition and when they lose it had demoralizing effect on them.

I’ve since learned to coach, support, encourage and sometimes give a little kick to the back side but I would never again compete with my mentees. Next time I should take on competition of my own size.

Giving up easily
There is nothing as annoying as giving your time and effort to move a mentee ahead and he’s not measuring up: He’s taking time to slack off or doesn’t appreciate the effort. The natural thing for me was to think they weren’t serious or deserving of my time so I promptly bumped them off.

How wrong of me! Yes, it is still annoying, but I’ve since learned that Rome wasn’t built in a day. No kid growing up has ever stopped walking just because of occasional tumbles. So, I’ve learned to chill a bit and give as many second chances as I can muster. After all I used to be annoying too and others took second bets on me.

The upside to mistakes
Knowing nobody is perfect is the biggest step towards Nirvana and this has helped me more in life than anything else. Instead of killing myself from doing the wrong thing, I simply learned from it and moved on.

Making the same mistakes over and over again is a different story entirely – you may need a trip to Yaba Left to find out why your gear is stuck at 2. Like my old boss, Joshy, would say – mistakes are allowed, errors are unforgivable – whatever that means!

Finding good in a bad economy

Despite Nigeria’s current economic struggles, opportunities exist. Real estate is more affordable, export businesses can thrive, and the software and fintech sectors offer global potential. Investing now may yield future rewards.

It’s hard to see a silver lining in the awful economic cloud currently flogging Nigeria’s backside.
But as an unrepentant and obsessive optimist, I’m sure there would be something good to come of this. If history is anything to go by, quite a number people start their journeys to success when things go titsup.

Real Estate
Things are really cheap now, especially for my cousins abroad. In fact cost of houses are going down while dollars exchange rate is going in the other direction. So if you live outside Nigeria and you couldn’t afford to get your own place in Lagos or elsewhere previously, this is the time to do it.

Export
Some people have been doing export for a while but I think the time is ripe for Nigeria to go into export frenzy. We all know how to copy, let’s over copy and paste this!
Nigeria is full of abundance of everything except FX. For example, hide and skin from the north are processed for export to those making shoes and fancy bags. We have cashew, timber, shea butter, etc. It’s easy to get into the game.
Finding customers may be a bit tough so that’s a job you need to do. Quality is also an important factor, always supply what has been requested.

Software and FinTech
This is the big one. In the last 2 years, I have worked with incredibly smart people; some are colleagues while many are vendors. This bunch of smart guys are building fantastic software and services that can be used anywhere in the world.
While their Nigerian customers are finding it hard to pay because of the economy, they can easily sell their services to those outside the country. The quality of their web applications and mobile apps would compete favorably on the global scale considering that their cost would be lower.
In fact, if I ran a global organization I would have my software team in Lagos, as their cost would be lower while getting same or even better quality.

Buying companies for pennies
Investors know that cash flow, ROE and ROI are kings. The rest is semantics.
If you checked the NSE of recent you would have laughed your boxers off. Big names are trading for next to nothing. They don’t even qualify to be called penny stock anymore, we should call them free stock.
Now this appeals to long term or Nigerians in diaspora investors who would want to hang around for the long haul. Reality is that we would get out of this funk so the best time to position for the future is now.
While I’m very optimistic that Nigeria would get out of this funk, I also know that’s dependent on the country to think its way out of the mess. If it doesn’t start with Buhari and others, it could start with me and you.
Maybe I ain’t in the best position to say this; I took the easy way out.