By Dipo Olowookere
A licence has been secured by a subsidiary of MTN Nigeria for the provision of financial services to millions of residents in the Africa’s largest economy.
With the new authorisation, the telecoms firm, through its arm, Yello Digital Financial Services Limited, would offer banking services in the country, taking part of the market share hitherto controlled by lenders already operating in the country.
Before now, MTN Nigeria had offered its platform for a defunct bank, Diamond Bank Plc, to provide financial services to customers.
In March 2019, Diamond Bank and Access Bank agreed to merge to become a single entity. This deal was mainly done to allow Access Bank penetrate the retail market.
In 2018, it was reported that MTN Nigeria was seeking approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to provide banking services in the country. After the report, there were speculations that some financial institutions were making efforts to frustrate this.
However, on Monday, MTN Nigeria, which listed its shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in May 2019, announced scaling through by securing the authorisation from the CBN.
In June 2019, Business Post reported that the chief executive officer at MTN Group, Mr Rob Shuter, had said the firm applied for a Payment Service Banking (PSB) licence in Nigeria in December 2018, after the CBN released draft Guidelines for Licensing and Regulation of Payment Service Banks.
The aim of this licence granted to MTN Nigerian is to provide banking services Nigerians without bank accounts through mobile money services, a policy that has been successful in Kenya.
Modupe Gbadeyanka 
Aduragbemi Omiyale