By Adedapo Adesanya
Moniepoint is taking a fresh step in the fintech space as it has announced its movement into personal banking with the launch of a consumer app and debit card.
Moniepoint’s foray into retail banking focus will put it in competition with OPay and PalmPay, which both offer these services.
With a new app, MoniePoint users will be able to make transfers, pay bills, and buy airtime, while its debit cards, issued through Mastercard and Verve, can be used at ATMs, POS terminals, and online.
The company also says it will introduce a first-of-its-kind automated dispute resolution system that will enable users to log disputes for failed card transactions and track them until they get a full reversal within 48 hours. This is in line with the CBN’s guidelines on chargebacks, which mandate a 48-hour reversal period.
Speaking on the move, Mr Ope Adeyemi, Moniepoint’s senior vice president for channels and sales tools said this was necessitated by its recent growth.
“Over 33 million customers use their cards on our terminals, and they deserve the same level of reliability we offer to our business owners, so today, we are introducing the debit card that always works and an app they can trust.”
“We currently have 800,000 terminals actively used daily across the country, and assuming there are 120 million adults in Nigeria, the ratio is 150:1. We can leverage this to make payments and banking better.”
“We still have to rely on other banks to complete payments, but the idea here is to improve the reliability of making payments and banking by ensuring that the process of making payments starts with the customer on Moniepoint and ends with the merchants on Moniepoint as well; that way we can literally almost guarantee 100% success rates,” he said.
He added that the company had designed its personal banking app to be as reliable as possible and added features such as salary advances. The app would also contain all the sensitive information on a customer’s debit card instead of being on the card.
Mr Adeyemi also added that a play at remittances would come later for both its business customers and its personal bank customers.
Launched in 2015, MoniePoint provides an all-in-one payment, banking and operations platform for businesses.
