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Nigerian mobile payment company, Paga, at the weekend urged the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to take a second look at its regulation on data pricing in the country.
It also said the country is not a prime destination for offshore cash, saying it is not easy getting a business profitable in the country in the face of myriad of challenges.
Its Founder/CEO, Tayo Oviosu, who spoke in Lagos at the weekend during a media session to mark the company’s 15th anniversary, said the company has navigated the fintech space over the period and commended the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for providing the leadership.
Oviosu who said the company has processed cash transactions valued at N14 trillion during the period under review, said 80per cent of the transactions were recorded in the last five years.
He said to deepen financial inclusion in the country, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) needed to urgently rework its regulation on data to make access to it affordable. According to him, the current cost of data is high, serving as a disincentive for the uptake of digital financial services.
According to data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS), mobile money operators in the country, including Paga, Opay, and Palmpay, among others, processed transactions valued at N17.2 trillion between January and March this year.
“As of today, we have 23 million users. At the end of March, we had processed 335 million transactions since inception, worth over N14 trillion or $32 billion and 80% of that we did in the last five years. This last quarter was our best quarter ever.
“When you look at our 10th anniversary, which was five years ago, from then we have grown volumes by five times and transaction values by seven times,” he said on the consumer side of the business.
While recalling the company’s milestones in the last 15 years, Oviosu said one of the biggest achievements of the company was the several people it was able to empower through job creation. According to him, the company has created 1,000 direct jobs and over 100,000 indirect jobs through its agents spread across the country.
The Paga founder noted that the company has expanded beyond the agent network to providing infrastructure for others through platform-as-a-service and serving 150 businesses.
Oviosu said the Nigerian payment landscape is very competitive because it is a very attractive market. He, however, noted that there is a huge opportunity for every player to create a niche and acquire customers.
On the performance of the CBN thus far, he said: “The regulator has made very clear the categorization and that has attracted a lot of competitors. And that’s a good thing. We don’t look at that as a bad thing because it also keeps us on our toes.
“And so all the competitors are a bit different in how they do things. I think our market is very similar to India. I don’t think it’s a winner-takes-all because there is no one person in Nigeria that has only one financial account. I’ve not met the Nigerian who has only one account. So, it’s not a winner-takes-all, but you probably have one that you prefer.”
Speaking on the challenges the company has faced over the years, the Paga identified dearth of fund as a major issue, especially at the inception of the business.
“When I started Paga, there were no angel investors; there was no tech ecosystem because nobody was doing anything at that time. So, when you are going out to pitch to investors, you are not just going out to pitch Paga, you have to pitch the story of Nigeria. And that was very hard because of the macro issues in Nigeria, so that was a real challenge,” Oviosu said.
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