By Tosin Eniolorunda, Group CEO, Moniepoint Inc.
Picture a restaurant in Ikeja, Lagos State, where a customer needs to make a payment after a meal. To make this interaction successful, two critical parts of the digital financial experience need to happen.
On one side of this are businesses, like, in this case, the restaurant. Businesses serve as an important locus, collecting payments from millions of customers. By empowering businesses to collect payments and manage their finances digitally, great transformation is possible.
But on the other side are the customers who need to pay these businesses, like the person who just finished their meal at this restaurant and wants to clear the bill. While these businesses can receive digital payments, the experience on the customer’s side isn’t very seamless.
As a team, I’m proud of how Moniepoint has helped lead this evolution through our reliable technology solutions. We’ve been able to work with over a million businesses across Africa to power their dreams and we are still on this path.
It’s not uncommon to find disputes between businesses and their customers, primarily because the current personal banking experience doesn’t give users as much control and reliability as they need.
With businesses being a touchpoint for these customers, our initial approach was to give them the full support they needed. More than 33 million unique cards are used on our terminals each month—over half of all banked Nigerians. This shows how firmly embedded digital payments are in our day-to-day lives and how much change is possible through the businesses we initially focused on.
But to truly improve the experience across the board, we need to extend our reliability to customers too. We’ve built a solid and reliable infrastructure for businesses. What if we powered their customers too? That is why we launched our personal banking product as part of our expanding suite of services.
People are often promised high-quality personal finance, only to be let down by unreliable service and poor results, and they deserve better. We are offering consumers the same service relied upon by many businesses they’re familiar with.
Too often, idealistic promises are made to users to revolutionise consumer finance. We bring a simple offer: a banking app and card that works.
With our expertise in building banking infrastructure and experience providing banking services to businesses, we’ve introduced new solutions to personal banking. Dispute resolution can now be more easily managed and monitored, putting control in the hands of the consumers who use these services, as it should have been.
This, in collaboration with the millions of businesses that use our terminals and banking solutions, guarantees unmatched reliability for users everywhere. We will build this up over time with new capabilities so consumers can make the most of our industry-leading service.
We have been part of this country’s digital transformation since our founding in 2015. I have witnessed firsthand how society has changed for the better through financial technology, and I’m determined to make the most of the opportunities.
As digital payments become more central to the financial experience in Nigeria, fintechs form the basis on which immense change is possible, and so much more can be explored. If people can pay digitally, commerce can thrive, and the ripple effect will be felt throughout the economy to the benefit of everyone.
By stepping up to provide financial solutions for individuals, we strive to be the gateway to people’s financial happiness. Together, we can help consumers and businesses across Nigeria power their dreams as part of a brighter and more prosperous future.