Adeola Odeku Street in an upmarket Lagos neighbourhood boasts the highest concentration of bank branches in Nigeria – but when people need cash they turn to mobile money agents under patchy umbrellas clutching palm-sized point-of-sale devices, rather than the lenders.
“My business is to give you the money if you can’t get it there,” Sani Abdulrahman said, pointing from his wheelchair to a branch of the United Bank for Africa – Nigeria’s third largest bank – across the street, and its block of empty ATMs.
Abdulrahman is one of more than two million mobile agents operating across Nigeria – one for every 100 people – handling most of the country’s daily transactions and starving the formal banking system of cash. The Central Bank of Nigerialooking to increase financial inclusion, encouraged their proliferation. But regulators now fear they are undermining the fight against inflation and pushing the naira further from their control.”Having excess cash outside the banking system would render impotent policy issues on the cash reserve ratio and lending rate,” said Ijeoma Kalu, professor of economics at the University of Port Harcourt.
The bank raised interest rates to 27.5% to fight inflation, but that isn’t working. Roughly 93% of total currency in circulation – or 4 trillion naira ($2.6 billion) – sits outside of banks.
The low barrier of entry for becoming an agent – a sturdy umbrella, a heavy-traffic location, a POS terminal and a cash wad of 20,000 naira – has also kept Nigeria’s many unemployed young people busy.
