Moniepoint unveils ambitious plan to disrupt Nigeria’s retail banking space
By Joseph Ekeng
In a bold move, Moniepoint, one of Nigeria’s prominent fintech companies, is set to conquer the retail banking market, and their strategy is nothing short of revolutionary. With a firm foundation in agency banking, Moniepoint is now gearing up to expand its services into personal banking, taking on established banks and formidable fintech competitors.
At a recent media gathering in Lagos, the acting managing director of Moniepoint Microfinance Bank (MFB), Babatunde Olofin, revealed that Moniepoint Inc. now handles payment transactions worth $12 billion per month, averaging 400 million transactions monthly. This achievement is all the more impressive when compared to their 2022 record, where they processed 1.7 billion transactions valued at over $100 billion. According to Olofin, Moniepoint’s robust infrastructure enables it to handle such massive transaction volumes seamlessly.
In this highly competitive arena, Moniepoint is facing off against heavyweight banks and well-funded fintech disruptors like Opay and Palmpay, along with rising stars such as Kuda, Fairmoney, and Carbon, who have made significant inroads into personal banking. Opay boasts 35 million registered users, while Palmpay claims to have over 25 million. Moniepoint, however, has a plan to stay ahead of the curve.
For Moniepoint, distribution is the key to success. Drawing from their agency banking playbook, they aim to replicate their triumphs in consumer banking. Their unique selling point is a network of offline agents that spans the entire nation. Olofin explains, “In every corner of the nation, we have our representatives known as agents. Even in areas where we don’t have a physical bank presence, we are there. We call our agents ‘man bank’ because you can actually do everything you can do in a banking hall with our agents.”
With a staggering 1.6 million businesses onboarded and more than 10,000 agents nationwide, Moniepoint is poised to leverage this robust network to attract retail customers. Their ambitious target is to onboard at least 4.8 million retail customers over the next three months, aiming to bring three new retail banking users from each of its business customers.
For those without smartphones, Moniepoint’s agents will facilitate the process of opening a personal account and provide them with cards for seamless transactions. Olofin emphasizes, “With our spread of agent network, it is easy for them [customers] to approach the agents and carry out transactions without necessarily looking for a physical structure.”
Moniepoint’s foray into personal banking is marked by a unique approach—gamification. To stand out in this competitive market, the company is betting on making banking not just a necessity but an engaging experience. Ope Adeyemi, the company’s senior vice president of channels and sales tools, explains their strategy: “Consumers are rewarded with coins on our personal banking app after they carry out transactions, and these coins allow them to take part in exciting weekly games such as Shuffle, Spin the Wheel.”
By incorporating gamification, Moniepoint aims to enhance the user experience and motivate customers to use their app and accompanying debit card for transactions over traditional cash methods. With thousands of users getting the chance to win N2,000 weekly and even a grand prize of N10 million, Moniepoint is creating a buzz that could reshape the way Nigerians view and engage with personal banking.
In a landscape where electronic transactions are booming, Moniepoint is poised to rewrite the rules of the retail banking game in Nigeria, and they’re doing it with a winning combination of distribution, innovation, and gamified customer engagement.
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