CEM REPORT, FINANCE | Moniepoint Inc. has revealed plans to diversify into personal banking with a target of at least 4.8 million retail customers in the first three months.
The move is riding on the fintech company’s achievement of an average of 400 million transactions monthly valued at $12 billion.
The Acting Managing Director of Moniepoint Microfinance Bank, Babatunde Olofin, revealed the move during a chat with journalists in Lagos.
Olofin attributed the stride recorded to the cash crunch which forced many businesses and individuals to embrace cashless means of transaction.
Speaking further on the diversification into personal banking, he said it is Moniepoint contribution to help the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) achieve its financial inclusion target as it will be targeting many unbanked Nigerians through agent banking.
Elaborating on the personal banking plan to onboard the unbanked and hit its target of at least 4.8 million retail customers in the first three months, Olofin stated that Moniepoint currently serves over 1.6 million businesses which it intends to utilise.
“We have powered the dreams of a lot of business owners, and we know what individuals need. We want to include everyone from the regular Okada rider, to the market woman in the financial services space. We have built our infrastructure in such a way that it is very elastic.”
“As transactions grow, we can expand our infrastructure and this is because we have several monitoring tools that help us to monitor how transactions are growing. Also, in every nook and cranny of the nation, we have our business relationship reps. Even in localities where there is no physical bank or ATM presence, you’ll find our precious blue boxes there.
“We call our agents ‘man bank’ because you can actually do everything you can do in a banking hall with our agents. So, we are everywhere because we want to drive financial inclusion in Nigeria.”
Speaking on the issue of failed transactions and consumer traffic, Olofin said Moniepoint has deployed elastic infrastructure to accommodate the growing volume of digital transactions on its platform.
“We have built our infrastructure in such a way that it is very elastic infrastructure. As transactions grow, we expand our infrastructure and this is because we have several monitoring tools that help us to monitor how transactions are growing.
“We have a system that triggers and says oh, the transactional threshold has gotten to this level. And immediately we know what to do to expand our infrastructure. And that’s why even during those times when people find it difficult to transact with other banks, we were always up and we are still and we will continue to be up to satisfy our customers.”
In furtherance of curating an enjoyable user experience for consumers and powering the dreams of many, the fintech also announced a gamified in-app approach that will see thousands of users win N2,000 weekly and a grand prize of 10 million naira. Ope Adeyemi, Senior Vice President, of Channels and Sales tools, described this innovative touchpoint as an incentivizing tool for deepening financial inclusion.
“We want to supercharge financial inclusion because we realize that if you want to drive behavioural change and increase adoption, you should reward consistently good behaviour. Consumers are rewarded with coins on our personal banking app after they carry out transactions, and these coins allow them to take part in exciting weekly games such as Shuffle, and Spin the Wheel,” he said.
Moniepoint posited 1.7 billion processed transactions worth over $100 billion for the closing financial year of 2022. It also disbursed $1.4 billion in loans and booked less than 1% in NPL (Non-Performing Loan).
