Nigeria’s fintech revolution is a remarkable achievement—at least on the surface. With 74 percent financial inclusion, ₦237 trillion in digital transactions in Q1 2024, and unicorns like Moniepoint pushing over a billion payments monthly, the numbers dazzle. In markets across Lagos, the chirping beep of a successful POS transaction has become the soundtrack of commerce.
But beneath the noise lies a harder truth: Nigeria has mistaken access for empowerment, creating what I call a financial inclusion illusion.
The numbers look good—Until you look closer
Yes, 74 percent of adults are financially included. But less than 1 percent of commercial credit reaches SMEs, the backbone of the economy. Only 4 percent of adults can obtain credit from a bank. And with a 10-point gap between financial inclusion and financial literacy, millions possess accounts that they barely understand how to use.
The result is predictable. When legitimate systems offer movement without growth, people run toward alternatives promising both. Ponzi schemes like MMM and CBEX don’t thrive because Nigerians are gullible; they thrive because the formal financial sector has failed to offer clear, credible paths to wealth creation.
We are asking the wrong questions
The industry’s obsession remains: How many signups? Did it send? Are transactions up this month?
The more urgent question is: Can people build wealth with this?
Some companies have pushed the envelope. PiggyVest, Bamboo, Rise, and Cowrywise created trusted channels for savings and investment. Renmoney and Carbon opened alternative credit pathways. But these gains remain fragmented, pockets of progress in an ecosystem still defined by limited access to productive finance, sparse public financial education, and the rise of predatory lending apps that erode trust.
Banks optimise for compliance. Fintechs optimise for payments. Almost no one optimises for generational wealth.
The building blocks of real financial empowerment
After years of building Mular and Earlybean and studying how successful ecosystems evolve, I’ve come to see empowerment not as one product but as a set of five underlying primitives:
1. Credit from cultural proof
Nigeria’s informal systems, ajo, esusu, and community trust, hold rich, structured data. A trader in Aba with years of reliable repayments is creditworthy, even without collateral or payslips. Technology must translate this cultural proof into formal creditworthiness.
2. Compliant crypto bridges
Nigeria’s $57 billion parallel crypto economy is real and growing. The question is no longer whether people use crypto, but whether the formal system will integrate it safely. Emerging SEC licensing structures provide a path; policymakers and banks must treat stablecoins as tools, not threats.
3. Real merchant recourse
Over 4,600 formal complaints are filed against financial services annually, and social media tells a much bigger story. Merchants need clear, automated dispute-resolution rails with regulatory bodies like FCCPC plugged directly into the ecosystem.
4. In-product financial capability
With 59 percent of Nigerians unable to interpret basic financial terms, literacy cannot be treated as a prerequisite. It must be embedded inside products, nudges, explainers, simulations, and behavioural cues.
5. Felt finality and sensory proof
The famed POS beep matters. It signals trust. Nigerians need transaction certainty within three seconds and automatic refunds institutionalised across providers. Reliability is not UX; it is economic infrastructure.
Proof from the ecosystem
We have seen what works.
Moniepoint scaled by building human trust bridges, 600,000+ agents whose credibility underpins the system, and by offering merchants a POS that doubles as a full banking terminal.
OPay unlocked 40 million users by eliminating friction: instant account creation through phone numbers and radical transparency about network issues.
At Mular, we are translating the parallel crypto economy into secure merchant rails. At Earlybean, we are reducing the literacy gap at the root by using gamified tools to teach children foundational financial behaviours.
These are not the whole solution, but they point toward what true empowerment looks like.
A new mandate for Nigeria’s fintech future
Success is no longer transactions per second or monthly active users. Success is mobility. Wealth creation. Reduced financial fragility.
The next transformative fintech won’t copy Silicon Valley. It will emerge from someone in Balogun Market observing how Nigerians actually move money, not replacing ajo and esusu, but digitising their trust logic and scaling it sustainably.
Nigeria has already won the war for access. Now it must pursue a harder, more meaningful victory: financial empowerment. The question every entrepreneur, regulator, and investor must now confront is simple:
“Can Nigerians build wealth with this?”
About the author:
Tomiwa Ogunmodede is cofounder of Mular, a crypto-to-fiat infrastructure platform, and Earlybean, a youth financial literacy and school payments app operating across Africa and the GCC. With 15+ years of experience in product design and venture building, he’s launched platforms that democratize access to economic opportunity, including the African Icon Library and Retna, a stock marketplace of authentic African imagery.
