CBN moves to establish payment service banks
Adesola Afolabi was a businessamlive reporter and Head of Financial desk.
The Central Bank of Nigeria has decided to create a new set of financial institutions called payment service banks.
This decision, according to the CBN, is in a bid to further enhance financial services for low income earners and unbanked segments of the economy by leveraging technology.
To this end, the CBN in a letter addressed to all banks, telecommunication companies, mobile money operators, banking agents and the Nigerian Communications Commission, called for comments and observations on a draft of guidelines that will regulate and facilitate license issuance for the new establishments.
The draft guidelines published Monday by the apex bank and accessible via its official website revealed that the key objective of payment service banks is to enhance financial inclusion in rural areas.
According to the CBN, this will be done by increasing access to deposit products and payment/remittance services to small businesses, low-income households and other entities through high-volume, low value transactions in a secured technology driven environment.
The guidelines also show the structure, permissible and non-permissible activities of the payment service banks as well as other requirements, part of which is a non-refundable application fee of N500,000, minimum capital of N5billion and non-refundable licencing fee of N2 million.