On Sunday, August 30, a message began circulating across Nigerian social media and messaging platforms, quickly getting serious mileage. It looked official, an “Official Note” from OPay Digital Services announcing that the company would suspend all transactions and account-related services from September 1, 2026, for a “long indefinite break.” Customers were advised to withdraw their funds “as soon as possible.”

Within hours, panic set in and withdrawals spiked. A fintech that serves an estimated 46 to 50 million users across Nigeria, supports over one million merchants and employs more than 7,000 people, was suddenly facing something that looked alarmingly like a bank run.

OPay moved fast. On Monday, it took to X to declare the notice false and inserted app banners notifying users of the falsehood. By Tuesday, it had released a video debunking the rumour. On Wednesday, the company held a press conference in Lagos, its top executives flanked by lawyers, making it abundantly clear that OPay was not going anywhere.

“Dem say we dey shut down September 1, today na September 2, we still dey veri active and transactions still dey go on normal,” said Dotun Adekunle, OPay’s chief operating officer and chief technology officer, speaking in Pidgin. “We dey here, we no dey run wit your money, we dey gidigba.”

But the company’s response went beyond reassurance. OPay has engaged the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force to investigate the source of the false information. It has already commenced legal action against at least one individual.

“Anyone who deliberately engages in similar conduct should expect decisive legal action and the full consequences provided by the law,” said Akinfolabi Rokosu, OPay’s chief legal counsel.

This is not an isolated incident. OPay has faced similar rumours before, in 2024 and again in November 2025, when false claims circulated that it had shut down or that customer deposits had been wiped out. Other major Nigerian corporations, including MTN, Wema Bank and pharmaceutical company May & Baker, have also been targeted by fake shutdown announcements in recent months.

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Earlier this year, the Central Bank of Nigeria upgraded OPay’s operating licence to national status, along with those of Moniepoint, Kuda Bank and other major fintechs. The upgrade formally recognised that these companies had expanded far beyond their original licence scopes and now operate across all 36 states. OPay, backed by SoftBank and Sequoia Capital and valued at USD 2 B, is preparing for a potential US initial public offering, while also weighing a secondary listing in Nigeria.

Yet for all its regulatory validation and institutional backing, a single piece of fabricated information shared across WhatsApp and X was enough to send millions of customers rushing to withdraw their money.

Olalekan Disu, executive at eTranzact and financial secretary of the Association of Licensed Payment Operators of Nigeria, said the threat goes beyond OPay. “Trust is the foundation of digital payments,” pointing out that when false information about a major player spreads, it does not just undermine one company but discourages adoption of digital payments across the board.

OPay has spent the years since its 2018 launch building a platform that helped millions of Nigerians navigate everything from daily transfers to the cash crisis of 2022 and 2023. Its green agent terminals have become a ubiquitous sight across the country. That infrastructure, and the trust it represents, is now being tested, not by usual regulatory or competitor adversity, but by the speed and reach of misinformation.

The company’s response, involving both state security agencies and the courts, signals that it views this as an existential threat. Rokosu said the action was necessary to ensure accountability and customer protection. But the deeper question is whether any amount of legal enforcement can keep pace with how easily fake news can be manufactured and spread.

OPay is still standing. The false shutdown date has passed, and transactions are flowing. But the episode has exposed a vulnerability that no amount of venture capital or regulatory approval can fully insulate against. In a country where digital finance has become essential infrastructure, the rumour mill is a systemic risk that the industry has only begun to confront.

Uber officially shut down its ride-hailing operations in Nigeria today, September 2, ending a 12-year presence in Africa’s most populous nation. The company also exited Uganda on the same day, part of a global restructuring that will cut roughly 3,300 jobs, or about 10 percent of its workforce. In a statement, Uber said the decision followed “a thorough review of our business” and thanked Nigerians for trusting the platform since it launched in Lagos in 2014.

It is the latest in a pattern of retreat from African markets where the economics of ride-hailing have become increasingly untenable. In January, Uber shut down in Tanzania after nearly a decade, citing a regulatory environment that made profitability difficult. Last year, it closed operations in Côte d’Ivoire. The withdrawals come as Uber pivots aggressively toward autonomous vehicles, planning to invest more than USD 10 B in robotaxis and aiming to offer driverless rides in 15 cities by the end of 2026.

For Nigeria, the departure is a significant blow to a digital economy that had developed with the platform in an often fraught landscape. Uber estimated in 2023 that it generated an additional NGN 6.1 B (USD 9.6 M) in annual income for Nigerian drivers compared to traditional alternatives.

Yet drivers have long complained that the math does not work in their favour. They face rising fuel costs, vehicle maintenance expenses, and commissions as high as 25 to 30 percent. In March, hundreds of drivers in Lagos went on a three-day strike over low fares and high commissions, logging off platforms including Uber, Bolt, and inDrive. “Drivers operating on platforms such as Uber, Bolt, inDrive, and Lagride face rising operational costs, including high fuel prices and vehicle maintenance,” one union leader said at the time.

The tensions have fuelled a conversation about local alternatives. After the March strike, drivers began discussing the creation of homegrown apps to regain control over pricing and commissions. Those conversations now take on new urgency. Bolt, which has overtaken Uber as Nigeria’s most downloaded mobility app, remains the dominant player. InDrive and local platform Lagride also continue to operate. But Uber’s exit leaves a gap that’s now up for grabs.

Regulatory friction has also mounted. In August, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria suspended Uber and Bolt from operating at airports, causing fares to surge and passengers to face long delays. The ban was later partially resolved, but it underscored the uneasy relationship between global platforms and local authorities.

Uber says it remains committed to Sub-Saharan Africa and that the withdrawals from Nigeria and Uganda will not affect its operations elsewhere on the continent. But the company is also reducing fully remote roles to about 1 percent of its workforce and flattening its corporate structure. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has said the rapid expansion over the past five years created organisational complexity that slowed decision-making. The restructuring is meant to redirect resources toward areas with greater growth potential, including autonomous mobility.

When Google started sending notifications to Kenyan YouTubers in late August asking for their KRA Personal Identification Numbers by October 1, the reaction was swift. Media personalities shared screenshots of said notification across social media, prompting heated discussions among followers. Actor and content creator Abel Mutua voiced what many were thinking: “You can tax us, but we don’t see where the money is going.”

The tax itself is not new. Kenya’s Finance Act 2023 introduced a 5% withholding tax on digital content monetisation for resident creators, down from an originally proposed 15%. At the time, it was framed as a concession. Kimani Kuria, who chaired the Finance and Planning Committee, said the reduction aligned digital creators with other professionals like lawyers and accountants who also attract a 5% withholding rate. The law took effect on July 1, 2023.

What changed is enforcement. For three years, the tax existed mostly on paper. Creators were expected to self-declare and settle at year-end, a system that relied heavily on voluntary compliance. Now Google is doing the deduction at source, automatically withholding 5% from monthly YouTube earnings before creators see the money. The first deduction applies to September 2026 earnings paid out in October. Creators who don’t submit a verified PIN by October 1 will have their payments held.

The Digital Content Creators Association of Kenya (DCCAK) has asked the National Treasury and KRA to suspend enforcement, calling the rollout an “ambush.” The association argues that creators have been given weeks to comply with an obligation that has existed in law since 2023, with no meaningful consultation on how it would be administered.

The deeper grievance is structural. The 5% is deducted from gross earnings, not net profit. A creator earning KES 100 K loses KES 5 K before accounting for internet data, cameras, editing software, studio hire, or crew payments. For small and emerging creators with thin, irregular margins, that deduction can make it harder to recover production costs. Established creators with predictable incomes may absorb it more easily, but the sector’s growth depends on the newcomers, not the few who have already made it.

There is also confusion about how the withheld amount interacts with annual income tax. KRA describes withholding tax as an advance credit against a creator’s final income tax liability, not a final tax. But DCCAK says creators haven’t received clear guidance on how that credit will appear on their KRA accounts, how to claim it, or how long refunds will take if the withheld amount exceeds what they ultimately owe. That uncertainty leaves creators guessing whether they’re paying 5% or possibly more.

Kenya’s approach puts it ahead of most African markets. Google does not withhold local tax from AdSense payments in Nigeria or South Africa, where creators are expected to declare platform income independently. Tanzania introduced a similar 5% withholding tax on digital content creators through its Finance Act 2024. Nigeria’s withholding tax regulations also apply a 5% rate to royalties paid to creators. But in those countries, enforcement remains patchy. Kenya is the first where a major platform is actively deducting at source.

Despite ongoing protests, the October 1 deadline stands for now, and creators who don’t comply won’t get paid. The tax is coming, whether they are ready or not.

One of the ten startups picked to scale this year bakes bread at an industrial level. Another manages a beachfront resort. A third is digging into the wholesale metals trade.

They are precisely the kind of businesses that rarely feature in the splashy headlines about African fintech darlings, and that, according to Cascador COO Oyin Solebo, is exactly the point. Sifting through over 1,000 applications for its 2026 ScaleUp cohort, the Nigeria-focused platform helping growth-stage founders scale deliberately sidestepped the pure-play tech hype cycle to bet on the gritty, tangible economy.

The final ten, which include ColdHubs (solar cold storage), EHA Clinics (primary healthcare), and SunFi (solar financing), represent a quiet rebellion against a venture capital playbook that has historically struggled to price risk outside of digital payments. For Solebo, the overwhelming volume of applications, more than double last year’s pool, revealed a deeper truth that Nigeria’s pipeline of scalable businesses is hiding in plain sight, built not on venture dollars but on customer receipts, supplier credit, and sheer operational grit.

“We received more than 1,000 qualified applications,” Solebo tells WT. “What surprised us most was how much entrepreneurial depth exists beyond the part of the Nigerian ecosystem that typically gets the headlines. Many of these founders may never describe themselves as ‘startup founders’ and may never have raised institutional venture capital.”

The scale trap

Cascador’s focus on “growth-stage” rather than early-stage ventures forces a difficult reckoning for founders. Solebo argues that many Nigerian entrepreneurs stumble at the transition from proving a business works to actually scaling it, largely because they confuse growth with scale.

“Growth is doing more, the same way. Scaling requires doing things differently so that the business can achieve exponential growth without costs and complexity increasing at the same rate,” she explains.

Solebo adds that the hustle, improvisation, and relationship-based problem-solving that get a company off the ground become constraints when you are trying to build an institution. “Capital can accelerate a strong organisation, but it can just as easily amplify the weaknesses in an unprepared one.”

This philosophy explains why some applicants that looked impressive on paper were rejected. “Sometimes deeper diligence exposed weak unit economics, financial or governance concerns,” Solebo admits. In other cases, the rejection came down to coachability, a harder-to-measure quality. “We simply were not convinced that the founder would absorb and act on what the programme had to offer.”

Cascador calls these ideal participants “learning multipliers”; founders who absorb ideas, challenge their own assumptions, and translate insights into better decisions. Over time, they build “resource multipliers” capable of creating disproportionate value from the capital and networks around them.

A costly mismatch often ignored

Perhaps the most contrarian insight from Solebo concerns financing. She argues that Nigeria’s growth-stage funding gap is not primarily a shortage of dry powder, but a structural mismatch between what capital providers offer and what businesses actually need.

“A profitable company that needs working capital to fulfil confirmed orders shouldn’t necessarily sell permanent equity to finance a short-term, self-liquidating need,” she says. “Equally, a company entering an untested market probably shouldn’t finance that uncertainty with expensive short-term debt.”

Yet for years, that binary choice—expensive commercial debt or venture-style equity—was the only game in town for many founders. Cascador’s Catalytic Fund, which deploys up to USD 5 M annually in partnership with Sterling Bank, tries to reverse that equation by asking what instrument actually fits the business constraint, whether it is local-currency debt, guarantees, or a blended structure. Sometimes, Solebo notes, the right answer is to not raise at all.

The cohort itself reflects this pragmatic, sector-agnostic approach. With 60% women-led businesses and founders from five of Nigeria’s six geopolitical regions, the 2026 class spans healthcare, agriculture, clean energy, food manufacturing, beauty, fitness, tourism, property tech, and critical minerals. Venco, Beauty Hut Africa, BEYOND Fitness, Ziba Beach Resort, Tulay Africa, Maanj Africa, and Finger Chops make up the rest of the cohort.

“Finger Chops has been able to grow from a catering service into a trusted full-scale bakery serving communities and businesses. But our vision does not stop there; we want to build a leading African food manufacturing company rooted in quality, locally sourced products and operational excellence. Being selected for Cascador’s 2026 ScaleUp Program brings us closer to making that vision a reality, and we look forward to all the opportunities it brings,” Adenike (Oyebola) Fetuga, CEO of Finger Chops, said in a press release.

Since 2019, Cascador has supported 70 ventures that have collectively raised over USD 125 M and, in 2025 alone, delivered essential products to more than 1.7 million customers. But Solebo is careful not to overstate the role of capital in that success. “Two businesses given exactly the same amount of money can produce completely different outcomes,” she says. “What often differentiates them is the quality of the judgement applied to that capital.”

That judgement sometimes means doing less, not more. “Progress is not always synonymous with expansion,” she adds. “Sometimes the best decision a founder can make is to narrow the target customer, abandon a product, or delay entering a new market.”

Solebo admits that Cascador itself has had to evolve. In its early years, the program gave outsized weight to classroom-style education. Today, the emphasis has shifted toward hands-on execution support, governance structures, and hiring strong leadership teams. “For our founders to grow as leaders, durable support structures must be in place as they execute on the knowledge gained,” she says.

It’s all well and good that the latest cohort steers clear of abstract digital experiments and focuses on what touches lives day to day: the cold rooms keeping tomatoes from rotting, the clinics offering primary care, or the solar panels powering small businesses. But whether the financial machinery can finally catch up to the reality on the ground is the next big question.

There was plenty of fanfare when Terra Industries emerged from stealth in January with an USD 11.75 M seed round led by 8VC, the Silicon Valley firm founded by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, staking its claim as Africa’s first homegrown defence prime, built by Nigerian engineers for Nigerian infrastructure.

“We want to take the defence of our continent’s resources and infrastructure into Africa’s own hands,” CEO Nathan Nwachuku said at the time. The company raised another USD 22 M in February and an additional USD 18 M in August, bringing its total seed funding to USD 51.7 M.

Then came the appointments. In March, Terra brought back Nnamdi Chife as vice president of military relations, but not before adding a director at Palantir to its board. Last week, it hired Todd Stiefler, a former Palantir and WHOOP executive, as director of commercial to lead a new division selling autonomous security systems to private infrastructure operators across Africa, the Gulf, South America and South Asia. Stiefler had built go-to-market teams for FedStart and Apollo at Palantir, programmes aimed at defence tech and dual-use startups.

The Stiefler appointment is the latest in a string of foreign nationals joining Terra’s leadership ranks. It has drawn both commendation and criticism. Notably, prominent Nigerian journalist David Hundeyin and colleagues at The Spearhead have continuously raised concerns that the startup has effectively surrendered itself to foreign intelligence and external decision-makers, painting a picture with their reporting that’s increasingly hard to ignore.

The worry is not abstract. Palantir, after all, was funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, and has long maintained contracts with the U.S. Department of Defence and the Pentagon intelligence community. Its co-founders include Peter Thiel, a far-right libertarian, and Joe Lonsdale, known for aligning with controversial white supremacist theories, whose firm 8VC now leads Terra’s funding. Alex Moore, a defence partner at 8VC and a board director at Palantir, joined Terra’s board in 2024.

Terra’s founders are young Nigerians, 24 and 26, with engineering backgrounds. About 40 percent of their engineers previously served in the Nigerian military. The company’s pitch is built on “sovereign intelligence”, the idea that African nations have long relied on intelligence from Western powers, China and Russia, and that Terra’s locally built systems, running on its proprietary ArtemisOS platform, can break that dependency.

“The major problem with insecurity in Africa is not the lack of firepower, but lack of real-time visibility,” Nwachuku has said.

But the gap between the rhetoric and the reality is widening. Terra now has a Palantir alum leading its commercial expansion, a Palantir board director on its own board, and funding from a firm founded by a Palantir co-founder. The company recently opened its first office outside Africa, in London. It has said it is on track to reach more than USD 100 M in contract bookings by the end of the year.

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Critics see a familiar pattern, warning that critical African innovation is being captured by foreign capital with strategic decision-making shifting offshore.

“Terra Industries is backed by Palantir Technologies, a U.S. defence and intelligence firm with active contracts with the CIA, the Department of Defence, and the Israeli Ministry of Defence,” one analysis noted. “Simply put, Palantir Technologies provides AI-powered military weapons and intelligence to both the U.S. and Israel, raising the question: who does Africa’s security infrastructure ultimately serve when the investor has its own strategic interests?”

Supporters counter that Terra is a private company, not a government agency, and that Nigeria already procures defence hardware from foreign suppliers. Nwachukwu has said there are no restrictions from investors, pointing to U.S. firms like Anduril and Palantir as proof that defence startups can thrive globally.

“Government and military work will always be central to Terra,” Nwachukwu said when announcing the commercial division. “But the commercial division gives us a constant flywheel of partnerships across industries.” His co-founder, Maxwell Maduka, dismissed concerns as “conspiracy theories.”

The tension is not going away. Terra’s commercial division will now sell autonomous security systems to private operators of power plants, pipelines, mines, ports and refineries, sectors the company says lose billions of dollars annually to theft and sabotage.

That puts foreign-backed technology at the heart of critical infrastructure protection across the Global South. Stiefler himself described the opportunity as one that could “fundamentally change the conversation around sovereignty and security in Africa and the Global South.”

Whether that change serves African sovereignty or American strategic interests is the question Terra has yet to answer.

When MTN launched MoMo Payment Service Bank in Nigeria in 2022, the telecom giant had every reason to be confident. It had already built successful mobile money operations in Ghana and Uganda, where it had turned its vast subscriber base into a thriving fintech business. In Ghana, nearly two-thirds of MTN’s customers now have active mobile money wallets.

Nigeria was supposed to be the crown jewel. Instead, it has become the headache.

The company announced this week that it has appointed Bode Abifarin, the former chief operating officer of Flutterwave, as the new managing director and chief executive of MoMo PSB, effective September 1. It is the latest in a series of moves by MTN to fix a business that has consistently underperformed in its most important market.

Abifarin brings more than 23 years of experience across financial services, consulting and digital payments. She spent 15 years at KPMG, rising to associate director in management consulting, before joining Flutterwave in 2018. At the Nigerian fintech unicorn, she helped scale the business across multiple African markets, establishing operating models and strengthening regulatory engagement.

She inherits a business in distress. MTN Nigeria recorded a NGN 62.56 B (USD 46.7 M) impairment on its fintech investments in its 2025 financial statements, including MoMo PSB and Yello Digital Financial Services. An independent valuation by Deloitte placed the combined market value of the units at about NGN 40.39 B (~USD 30 M), far below their carrying value of roughly NGN 107.95 B. The company described the fintech units as loss-making.

The user numbers tell a similar story. MoMo PSB ended 2025 with about 3.7 million active wallets, a fraction of MTN’s long-term ambition of reaching 30 to 40 million users. Active wallets had declined 55.6% year-on-year to 2.1 million in the first quarter of 2025 before recovering.

While active wallets climbed to 5 million in the first half of 2026, an 88.8% increase from a year earlier, overall fintech revenue fell 7.2% to NGN 77.2 B (USD 57.6 M) during the period, weighed down by the temporary suspension of its airtime lending service, which makes up much of MTN’s fintech revenue in Nigeria. The airtime lending freeze dragged fintech revenue down 72.4% year-on-year to NGN 12.99 B (USD 9.5 M) in the second quarter of 2026.

The gap between MTN’s performance in Nigeria and other markets is quite telling. In Ghana, the separation of mobile money into a standalone business has been relatively smooth. In Nigeria, telcos have struggled to sell mobile money as independent fintech firms including OPay and Moniepoint have moved faster and captured a dominant share of the market. MTN’s payment service bank licence, obtained from the central bank in 2022, restricts the company from offering loans and other services that competitors provide freely.

MTN is now restructuring its fintech operations on multiple fronts. In April, MTN Nigeria announced plans to sell a 60% stake in MoMo PSB and Yello Digital Financial Services to MTN Group for NGN 152.06 B. The company is also pursuing a structural separation of its Nigerian and Ugandan fintech operations to attract outside investment. In June, MTN Group Fintech announced a technology partnership with Ant International, the global arm of the Chinese fintech giant behind Alipay, to rebuild the MoMo platform into a super app, starting with Nigeria in the third quarter of 2026.

Serigne Dioum, chief executive of MTN Group Fintech, said Abifarin brings an “exceptional blend of strategic leadership, execution excellence and deep fintech expertise” to the role. Michael Ajukwu, chairman of the MoMo PSB board, said her experience in payments and digital transformation made her well positioned to lead the bank.

Abifarin described her appointment as an opportunity to expand access to digital financial services in Nigeria. “Financial inclusion remains one of the greatest opportunities to unlock economic empowerment and prosperity for millions of people,” she said.

Her task is to execute across multiple fronts simultaneously. Between integrating the Ant International partnership and navigating the restructuring that will transfer majority ownership to MTN Group, to competing against nimbler fintech rivals that have already built commanding market positions, Abifarin has her hands full.

At Flutterwave, she helped build one of Africa’s most valuable fintech companies from the ground up. At MoMo PSB, she inherits a business with a vast telecom subscriber base to draw on but a track record of failing to convert that advantage into meaningful market share.

Weeks after the head of the Nigeria Exchange Group (NGX) namechecked some of Nigeria’s biggest fintechs eyeing IPOs elsewhere while nudging them to also consider local listings, one of Nigeria’s largest fintech companies, OPay, is reportedly weighing listing its shares on the Nigerian Exchange, a move that could give local investors a stake in a business that generates nearly 90% of its revenue from the country.

The proposed local listing comes as OPay also prepares for a potential initial public offering in the United States that could value the SoftBank-backed company at about USD 4 B. It remains unclear whether the Nigerian listing would happen alongside the US IPO or later under a dual-listing structure. OPay has not disclosed the timing, size or valuation of the proposed share sale.

The development follows a push by Nigerian Exchange Group Chief Executive Officer Temi Popoola, who in early August urged President Bola Tinubu to support measures encouraging major companies generating substantial revenue in Nigeria to list locally. Popoola specifically cited OPay and PalmPay as fintech companies considering overseas listings and argued that Nigerian investors should have the opportunity to participate in the wealth being created by such businesses.

“While we encourage free and open markets, let’s make sure our locals can also benefit. As they list abroad, they should also list in our country,” Popoola was quoted as saying following the meeting with the president.

Despite launching a dedicated Technology Board in 2022 to attract high-growth tech companies, the NGX has not recorded a single tech IPO to date. A report by TLP Advisory found that more than half of surveyed startups lacked clarity on the listing process, while currency mismatches and concerns over market liquidity have deterred founders from going public locally.

OPay’s financial performance strengthens its case for a public listing. The company processed USD 358 B in gross transaction value in 2025, more than double the USD 166.2 B recorded a year earlier. Revenue surged 161% to USD 536.3 M, while operating income turned positive at USD 107.1 M, per Nairametrics, compared with a USD 35.1 M loss in 2024. Nigeria accounted for 88.1% of that revenue.

Nigeria has produced several large fintech companies with substantial transaction volumes and international backing, but most remain privately held. The absence of major fintech listings has left domestic investors with limited ways to gain direct exposure to the sector. An OPay listing could establish a pathway for other large Nigerian technology companies to tap local capital markets as they scale.

PalmPay, another fintech named by Popoola, is exploring a potential Hong Kong IPO that could value it at more than USD 1 B, Bloomberg reported. The company, backed by Transsion and MediaTek, is seeking about USD 200 M in funding ahead of the listing. Like OPay, PalmPay has built substantial operations in Nigeria but is looking abroad for public capital.

Analysts say a dual-listing framework could provide a compromise, allowing companies to access international capital while giving Nigerian investors a stake. But structural barriers remain. A significant share of Nigeria’s startups raise capital in dollars but earn revenue in naira, creating a currency mismatch that discourages local listings.

A Nigerian listing could provide OPay and others with access to the investors in the market where most of its business is generated, while maintaining its ambitions for international capital through a US offering. It could also test whether Nigeria’s stock market can finally attract the high-growth technology businesses that have long preferred deeper pools of capital overseas.

Feature Image Credits: Kora

Moniepoint’s rather swift decision to shutter MonieWorld after just 14 months shows it’s bravely come to terms with the humbling reality that a USD 250 B payments machine at home does not automatically translate into victory abroad.

The Nigerian fintech unicorn, backed by Google and Visa and valued at over USD 1 B, announced on Tuesday it was winding down its UK-to-Nigeria remittance service. MonieWorld stopped accepting transactions on August 15 and will shut completely on September 15. The move comes despite a reported 70% increase in monthly transaction volume among UK diaspora users.

The decision is being couched in capital discipline. Moniepoint’s core business in Nigeria processed NGN 412 T (USD 294 B) in transaction value across more than 14 billion transactions in 2025, powering eight out of every 10 in-person payments nationwide. It disbursed over NGN 1 T in loans to small businesses. The company is Nigeria’s largest merchant acquirer, a position built on volume, distribution and deep integration into the informal economy.

By contrast, MonieWorld entered one of the world’s most competitive consumer finance corridors. Nigeria received an estimated USD 23 B in diaspora remittances in 2025, with the UK corridor moving between USD 3.5 B and USD 4.5 B. But the route is crowded with established players including LemFi, which processes over USD 1 B in monthly transaction volume, NALA, Wise, WorldRemit and Flutterwave’s Send App.

Moniepoint’s UK entry was expensive. The company incorporated Moniepoint GB in February 2024 and spent about GBP 1.2 M on administrative expenses, technology and compliance staffing. It also committed a USD 2.5 M equity deposit to acquire Bancom Europe Ltd, an FCA-authorised electronic money institution. For the 2024 financial year, Moniepoint GB reported a USD 1.2 M loss.

“Having validated its cross-border infrastructure and delivered value to thousands of diaspora users, the Group is now redirecting this technical, capital, and operational architecture toward its primary African markets,” the company said in a statement.

The remittance business is defined by trust and habit. Customers who have sent money through the same app for years do not switch lightly. Acquiring new users is expensive; retaining them, once the product works, is relatively cheap, as one analysis pointed out. Early movers like LemFi and NALA have spent years building brand recognition and institutional backing.

Moniepoint’s retreat reflects a broader recalibration among African fintechs. After testing international diaspora channels, many are concentrating resources where distribution, infrastructure and unit economics are already proven. Meanwhile, established UK fintechs such as Revolut and Monzo are increasingly setting their compass towards African markets.

Moniepoint says it aims to deepen its position in Nigeria and Kenya, where it recently acquired a 78% stake in Sumac Microfinance Bank. Most employees working on MonieWorld will be redeployed within the group while the FCA licence and Bancom infrastructure are reportedly being marketed to potential buyers.

The company’s core business, meanwhile, continues to print scale; processing the majority of Nigeria’s in-person payments, serving over 6 million businesses and banking more customers than many traditional lenders. For Moniepoint, there was rice at home all along. The UK buffet, it turns out, was not worth the fight.

Nigeria’s smartphone market is undergoing a sharp reversal as rising device prices push consumers back to basic feature phones, with industry data showing the country’s smartphone shipments fell 11% in the second quarter of 2026 while demand for cheaper handsets surged.

The decline marks a significant shift in Africa’s largest mobile market, where affordability has emerged as the single biggest barrier to internet access. According to GSMA, the global telecom industry body, 63% of Nigerians remain offline not because of a lack of network coverage but because they cannot afford smartphones.

Smartphone prices have been climbing steadily as rising memory and semiconductor costs, driven partly by surging demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure, squeeze manufacturers’ margins. The average selling price of smartphones in Africa increased by USD 41.00 year-on-year to USD 202.00 in the second quarter, reversing a trend of aggressive price reductions seen in 2025.

“We’re witnessing a forced upward shift in the African market,” said Manish Pravinkumar, principal analyst at Omdia. “Vendors can no longer profitably manufacture USD 75.00 smartphones, while consumers who need connectivity are increasingly having to stretch their budgets towards USD 200-plus devices”.

The impact has been most severe at the lower end of the market. Shipments of smartphones priced below USD 100.00 fell 34% year-on-year across Africa, representing a decline of nearly 3 million devices. In Nigeria, where more than four in five smartphones sold in 2025 were priced below USD 200.00, the shift has been particularly pronounced.

Retailers report a growing exodus from smartphones to basic feature phones, known locally as “palasa” or torchlight phones. Unlike smartphones, these devices rely strictly on traditional voice calls and text messages, protecting users from costly data consumption.

“I had to drop my Android phone in my drawer,” said Idris Abubakar, a 35-year-old auto mechanic in Lagos. “Every time I turn on my mobile data, the apps swallow NGN 1 K worth of data within hours on background updates. I cannot choose between feeding my family and feeding a smartphone”.

The price pressure shows no signs of easing. Analysts project smartphone prices in Nigeria could rise by another 15% to 30% through the remainder of 2026 as component costs remain elevated. Memory components account for 15% to 20% of the bill of materials for a mid-range device, and RAM prices have surged by as much as 250% recently.

The market leader Transsion, whose brands include TECNO, Infinix and itel, saw shipments fall 14% in the second quarter due to its heavy exposure to the sub-USD 100.00 segment. Samsung, by contrast, grew shipments 15% as the market shifted toward higher price bands.

Device financing has emerged as a critical lifeline. M-KOPA, a pan-African fintech company, has deployed more than NGN 231 B (USD 170 M) in credit to over one million Nigerians since entering the market in 2019, enabling 290,000 people to own a smartphone for the first time.

“Once you finance solar home solutions, you start to ask yourself what you missed,” said Babajide Duroshola, M-KOPA Nigeria’s general manager. “That is when you figure out that everybody needs to be in the digital economy, and access to a smartphone solves this”.

Other players are following suit. Vivo signed a financing agreement with Credit Direct in April, allowing customers to pay a 20% deposit and spread the balance over six months. The GSMA, in partnership with mobile operators, is also piloting USD 40.00 4G smartphones across six African markets, including Nigeria.

But financing spreads the cost over time rather than reducing the underlying price. For millions of Nigerians, the calculation is no cakewalk. A USD 100.00 smartphone currently costs about NGN 135 K, nearly two times the minimum wage of NGN 70 K (USD 52.00).

Omdia forecasts a 26% decline in Africa’s smartphone shipments for the full year of 2026, ending three years of consecutive growth, making things complicated for both manufacturers and consumers who have come to rely on smartphones as the gateway to banking, commerce and work.

Feature Image Credits Times Hugher Education

The image of a lone migrant worker wiring money home once a month is giving way to something more complex. A new report from Zepz, the payments group behind WorldRemit and Sendwave, shows that 70% of senders now support multiple recipients and more than one in eight send money to multiple countries, reflecting a fundamental shift in how cross-border payments are used across Africa.

The findings, based on five years of data from more than 5.5 million unique senders, challenge the traditional view of remittances as emergency support. Almost half of all transfers are under USD 50.00, and nearly three-quarters fall below USD 100.00. They are regular, recurring transfers that have become as routine as paying a utility bill.

Adults aged 25 to 34 now represent the largest sender group, accounting for 30% of all active users. Having grown up with mobile banking, this generation expects cross-border finance to match the speed and simplicity of the apps they use daily. Women have also reached near parity, accounting for 45.9% of transactions and representing 49.9% of senders aged 35 to 44. The gap between what men and women send per transfer has more than halved in five years.

The numbers are reshaping how African economies think about diaspora finance. Sub-Saharan Africa received USD 54 B in officially recorded remittances in 2023, according to the World Bank, surpassing foreign direct investment and official development assistance in many countries. Nigeria receives roughly USD 19-20 B annually, while Kenya and Ghana each receive about USD 4-5 B. In smaller economies like The Gambia and Lesotho, remittances exceed 20% of GDP.

But the infrastructure that moves this money is changing. Traditional remittance fees to Africa have historically ranged from 7% to 12% per transaction. Fintech platforms including Sendwave, LemFi and Grey have compressed costs to between 1% and 3%, delivering funds directly to mobile wallets used by millions of Africans without bank accounts. LemFi now handles more than USD 1 B in monthly payment volume.

Zepz, which transferred USD 17 B for customers in 2025, is pushing further into digital infrastructure. In October 2025, it launched the Sendwave Wallet, built on the Solana blockchain, allowing customers to hold and send USDC stablecoins across more than 100 countries. The wallet lets users store value in digital dollars rather than converting immediately to local currency, a feature that matters in regions facing currency volatility.

The company has partnered with Fireblocks to scale stablecoin settlement and with TRM Labs for blockchain intelligence to manage financial crime risk. In January 2026, Zepz acquired a credit product from Pomelo, extending into lending and cards.

Governments are taking notice. Nigeria’s Central Bank is targeting USD 1 B in monthly diaspora remittances by the end of 2026, up from more than USD 600 M currently. The bank has removed regulatory bottlenecks for international money transfer operators and adopted a “free entry and free exit” foreign exchange approach. Kenya’s central bank, meanwhile, has revised its 2026 remittance forecast down to USD 5.11 B, citing pressure from the Middle East conflict and a new 15% VAT on transfers in Saudi Arabia.

The shift is also generational. Older remitters, those aged 55 and over, send an average of 36.8 transfers a year, more than three per month. But it is the younger cohort entering the market that are shaping its future, bringing expectations of speed, transparency and integration with the digital financial tools they already use.