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Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), the country’s state-owned satellite company, earned ₦2.2 billion ($1.6 million) in revenue in 2025, chief executive Jane Egerton-Idehen said. The growth—up from ₦650 million ($470,854) in 2024— comes as questions linger over the future of Nigeria’s only working communications satellite, amid a dispute over $11.4 million in unpaid fees to a Chinese company. Egerton-Idehen described the growth as part of a deliberate trajectory rather than a one-off spike. “It’s not going to be a flat line; it’s a growth curve,” she said during a press briefing in Lagos on Friday. Broadcasting remains the backbone of NIGCOMSAT’s earnings, accounting for more than 50% of total revenue. The company supports over half of Nigeria’s licenced broadcasters, according to Egerton-Idehen. Its next phase of growth will rely on broadband capacity, which she says remains significantly underutilised. “Our biggest opportunity is broadband,” she said. “That’s where the journey to ₦8 billion ($5.8 million) will come from.” The ambition is significant for a company that spent years rebuilding customer trust after the loss of its first satellite in 2008 and years of declining confidence in its services. NIGCOMSAT says it is targeting multiple segments within the broadband market, including consumer internet, enterprise connectivity, and infrastructure support for telecom operators. The growth targets sit against an unresolved operational risk. NigComSat-1R, Nigeria’s only working communications satellite, was built for a 15-year lifespan and has been extended to 2028 through technical upgrades. The government plans to replace it with a new satellite that year, followed by another in 2029. But an ongoing financial and operational dispute with China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), which manages the satellite, has raised questions about its reliability in the interim. Egerton-Idehen acknowledged the gaps the company has had to close. “We had to win customers back,” she said. “Some left and never returned because of past experiences. Now we are fixing those gaps—service quality, awareness, and technology upgrades.” A crucial growth area for NIGCOMSAT is cellular backhaul, where satellite capacity is used to connect remote mobile base stations to core networks, particularly critical in rural Nigeria, where laying fibre infrastructure is often uneconomical. State governments have also emerged as a meaningful customer segment, with Adamawa, Gombe, Cross River, and Imo already using NIGCOMSAT’s services for connectivity and digital infrastructure projects. Beyond commercial services, NIGCOMSAT plays a strategic role in Nigeria’s defence and security architecture. Satellite technology enables secure, real-time communication in areas without terrestrial network coverage, such as forests and offshore waters. Egerton-Idehen explained that military operations rely on satellite-enabled systems installed on moving assets like armoured vehicles and naval ships, allowing them to transmit voice, video, and data back to command centres. “In environments where there is no mobile coverage, satellite becomes the only option,” she said. “It can be deployed on anything that moves—or doesn’t move—and that’s critical for national security.”
Read MoreDefaulting on a loan with some digital lenders can turn into relentless phone calls, frozen accounts, office raids, threats, and, in some cases, public shaming. In 2025, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) introduced fines of up to ₦100 million ($72,000)—or 1% of annual turnover—for lenders who resort to harassment and intimidation as loan recovery tools. Those defaults, when they pile up, become the bad loans quietly eating into a lender’s balance sheet. Nomba and Globus Bank say their credit model is built to stop that from happening, and the numbers, so far, back them up. The Nigerian fintech and tier-3 commercial bank said their 18-month credit partnership has disbursed ₦21.3 billion ($15.3 million) to Nigerian businesses, with less than 1% of those loans classified as non-performing. That figure covers lending across wholesale and retail, professional services, food and hospitality, oil and gas, and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). Bad loans are rising across Nigeria’s banking system Loans are built on the premise that they should be repaid on schedule, and when repayments are delayed beyond the standard 90 days, the loan is classified as non-performing. Non-performing loans (NPLs) affect how much banks can lend: the higher the share of bad loans, the more capital is tied up, and the more cautious lenders become about extending new credit. NPLs in Nigeria’s banking industry have been rising. In early 2023, the figure stood at 4.2%, but was estimated to reach 7% by the end of 2025. These increases in NPLs are often tied to currency devaluations, inflation, and other economic pressures that make repayment harder for borrowers. Nomba and Globus Bank said their lending model looks nothing like that. The companies said their portfolio is performing differently because of how their loans were structured and managed. Instead of relying on traditional methods of assessing creditworthiness that use financial statements and fixed collateral, the partnership said it used a different approach to assessing businesses and tracking loan performance. “That number did not happen by accident,” said Yinka Adewale, chief executive Officer of Nomba, referring to its NPL ratio. “It happened because we built underwriting infrastructure that actually works, data that is real, collateral that is meaningful, and borrowers who have genuine skin in the game.” How Nomba and Globus’ credit model works Under this model, businesses eligible to apply for loans are selected based on how much of their financial activity runs through Nomba. “Of the over 600,000 businesses we bank in Nigeria today, we internally cap the credit-eligible universe at approximately 20,000,” Adewale said. He explained that eligible businesses must be formally registered, generate steady transaction volumes, have sufficient history on the platform, and understand debt obligations. Even within that pool, lending is limited. Nomba said it currently serves roughly 10% of those eligible merchants. Crucially, merchants do not need to submit financial statements when applying for loans. Instead, they are assessed continuously on the transaction data they already generate on Nomba’s infrastructure. “Nomba underwrites against what businesses actually do, not what they report,” Adewale said. “Nomba sits at the centre of its merchants’ daily transaction activity; it has direct, real-time visibility into revenue flows, settlement patterns, operational cycles, and cost structures.” That data forms the basis of its credit decisions, replacing the financial audits and credit histories that traditional lenders rely on. Credit facilities in this model are sized to about 1% of a business’s annual revenue, keeping repayment obligations within a range that should not strain daily operations. Once loans are disbursed, merchants are continuously monitored on a rolling 30-day basis with the same infrastructure that determined their creditworthiness to monitor changes in revenue that may affect loan repayment. “The system flags deterioration automatically, before it materialises into a missed payment, and triggers the appropriate response, whether that is a restructure, a borrower conversation, or a recovery action,” Adewale said. A second pillar of Nomba and Globus’ lending model is what they described as digitised collateral, a mix of inventory tied to the specific loan use case, digital assets such as stocks or stablecoins, and semi-liquid physical assets. “The mechanism is contractual. Assets are pledged at origination and tied to the credit facility through legal documentation. In a default scenario, those assets form part of the recovery pathway,” Adewale said. Because digital assets are volatile, borrowers must also provide a 30% cash collateral cover upfront, creating a buffer against sudden value drops. In a default scenario, the pledged assets and the cash cover form the primary recovery pathway. A model built on visibility The model’s strength is also its most obvious weakness. Assessing creditworthiness and managing digital collateral works best when a merchant’s financial activity is primarily run on Nomba. “If we cannot underwrite with confidence, we do not extend credit,” Adewale said, explaining that this forms a major reason why its credit model is capped. The sub-1% performance of its loans may also be shaped by what it excludes. With only about 20,000 out of over 600,000 businesses considered eligible, and even fewer actually receiving loans, the model is applied to a narrow segment of businesses. Cash-heavy businesses or those operating across multiple platforms are less likely to qualify because they present thinner data trails for Nomba to track. Even within a tightly controlled model, defaults are not eliminated. If loans go bad in this model, Nomba said its first response is restructuring the loan to align with the business’s current capacity. Where restructuring fails, recovery of the 30% cash cover and pledged digital assets follow. The structure of Globus Bank’s and Nomba’s partnership is split along institutional strengths. Globus Bank provides capital and operates within its lending licence, while Nomba controls the credit layer, from identifying borrowers to underwriting, real-time monitoring, collateral management, and managing repayment. Risk is also shared between both partners, although Adewale said Nomba carries most of it. Nomba is presenting this as a blueprint rather than a ceiling. It plans to expand the credit model to other sectors through additional partnerships.
Read MoreKenya is drawing a tight circle around who can issue stablecoins in the country and how those digital currencies must be built. The National Treasury’s draft Virtual Asset Service Providers Regulations, published in March and now out for public comment until Friday, lay out reserve rules, capital thresholds, and disclosure standards that together try to pull stablecoin value, data, and control firmly onshore. Under the proposed regulations, any firm issuing a stablecoin to the public in Kenya must hold local fiat‑backed reserves at all times in high‑quality liquid assets, such as cash or deposits with commercial banks or the central bank. Those reserves must be kept separate from the issuer’s own funds, free from third‑party claims, and always available for redemption. At least 30% of customer funds backing a stablecoin must sit in segregated accounts at commercial banks domiciled in Kenya, while the rest is limited to high‑quality liquid assets like cash or government securities with maturities of 90 days or less, anchoring a meaningful slice of stablecoin float in the domestic banking system. Tokens must be redeemable at par value on demand, and issuers are banned from paying interest or yield on stablecoins, including “indirect yield routed through other licenced virtual asset businesses.” It is a direct shot at yield‑bearing products that have powered much of global stablecoin adoption. Kenya’s draft rules are built to encourage well‑capitalised, heavily scrutinised stablecoin issuers whose fully backed, segregated reserves must stay ring‑fenced and available so holders can redeem at par and have a claim against the issuer if things go wrong. Yet, high capital and compliance demands risk pushing smaller issuers—and much of the informal mix of digital tokens that circulate in Kenya today—out of the licenced market altogether, narrowing the range of digital tokens that users can access through regulated channels. Stablecoin issuers “in or from Kenya” would need at least KES 500 million ($3.85 million) in paid‑up capital, and core or liquid capital of KES 100 million ($773,700) or 100% of current liabilities for at least 30 days, whichever is higher. The draft also proposes recurring proof‑of‑reserves checks, annual independent reviews, and robust internal controls around custody and operations, alongside the licencing and renewal fees that apply across the sector. Boards of directors would be held accountable for the accuracy of disclosures, and issuers would have to file updates with regulators and include clear warnings that these products are not covered by investor compensation schemes. The draft also establishes a “Coordination Committee,” chaired by the National Treasury, with members from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK); the Capital Markets Authority (CMA); the Financial Reporting Centre (FRC); the Asset Recovery Agency (ARA); the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI); the National Intelligence Service (NIS); the Nairobi International Financial Centre (NIFC); the National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Committee (NC4); the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK); the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC); the Office of the Attorney General; and any other agency the Cabinet Secretary may designate. The 13-member committee’s mandate will be to coordinate supervision of virtual asset service providers, share supervisory and enforcement information, harmonise regulatory approaches, support joint inspections and risk assessments, and issue joint advisories where issues cut across multiple agencies. That structure means decisions about where reserves sit, which custodians are acceptable, when an issuer is too risky, or whether a coin should be halted or delisted are unlikely to rest with a single authority. Kenya’s approach mirrors moves in the United States and the European Union (EU) to tighten standards for stablecoins without banning them. In the US, the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, signed in July 2025, requires permitted payment stablecoin issuers to hold 100% reserves in specified liquid assets—cash, deposits at regulated institutions, short‑term Treasuries, and certain money market funds—and to make regular public disclosures on how those reserves are composed. In the EU, the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules require smaller stablecoins to hold at least 30% of their reserves at commercial banks and “significant” stablecoins 60% or more, with the remainder in other high‑quality liquid assets. Kenya’s proposal echoes those trends on full backing and bank deposits but goes further in two ways: it ties a fixed slice of reserves specifically to Kenyan banks and assets, and it bans yield outright, where the US and EU frameworks focus more on reserve safety and disclosures than on how much return a holder can earn. The yield ban and licencing model narrow what licenced virtual asset companies in Kenya can do with yield‑bearing stablecoins. Since issuers are barred from paying interest on these coins, including indirectly through other licenced virtual asset businesses, a Kenyan‑regulated platform is unlikely to launch its own yield‑bearing token or wrap staking returns into a local product. The Kenyan Stablecoin Anchor Simulate the reserve requirements under Kenya’s 2026 draft VASP regulations. Proposed Stablecoin Supply (KES) KES Current Kenya stablecoin supply is approx. KES 18.8M ($145k). 30% Local Bank Anchor KES 300,000 Must be held in segregated accounts at commercial banks in Kenya. 70% High-Quality Liquid Assets KES 700,000 Cash or government securities with < 90 days maturity. The Barrier to Entry Fixed Paid-up Capital Required: KES 500M This is ~26x the size of Kenya’s entire current stablecoin market ($3.85M). Share on X Based on Kenya’s draft VASP Regulations 2026. $1 ≈ KES 130. Calculations assume a 1:1 local currency peg as mandated by the Treasury draft. Stablecoins now sit at the heart of digital markets, and the numbers show how concentrated that market has become. As of March 2026, global stablecoin supply stood at $320.1 billion, with US dollar‑linked coins making up 99.76% of that supply, according to research firm Artemis. By comparison, African currencies barely register stablecoin supply activity, accounting for a combined $665,300 in value, well below 1%. Within that tiny sliver, South Africa leads with roughly $426,400 in rand‑linked coins such as ZARSC and ZARP, followed by Kenya with around $145,300 (including KESm), Nigeria with about $67,800 (cNGN and NGNm), and Ghana with
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