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From Abdulrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
Stakeholders in Nigeria’s agency banking ecosystem have raised concerns over persistent regulatory gaps, operational bottlenecks, and uneven progress in financial inclusion as the sector marks a decade of nationwide expansion.
The issues came to the fore at the 9th Annual National Conference of the Association of Mobile Money and Banking Agents in Nigeria (AMMBAN) and it’s 10th anniversary, held in Gombe and attended by regulators, operators, and fintech players.
Mr. Ezekiel Sanni of Moniepoint Microfinance Bank said that while agency banking now serves more than 60 million Nigerians through an estimated 1.5 million agents, fundamental challenges continue to weaken system reliability. He pointed to inconsistent regulatory enforcement, network instability, and rising fraud cases as key factors undermining trust among users.
He also highlighted persistent inclusion deficits, noting that financial exclusion remains significantly high in parts of northern Nigeria, while the gender gap in access to formal financial services has widened to 9 percent. Sanni urged regulators and service providers to coordinate more effectively and adopt policies that strengthen consumer protection and expand the scope of services agents can legally offer, including credit, insurance, and pensions.
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AMMBAN’s Acting National President, Dr. Obioha Oti, traced the sector’s evolution from a small network of kiosks in 2013 to a nationwide mechanism that now anchors Nigeria’s financial inclusion agenda. He said the association has worked with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other institutions to develop standards and professional practices for agents since its establishment in 2016.
While acknowledging recent CBN reforms aimed at improving transparency and security in the sector, Dr. Oti called for more flexible implementation frameworks that account for the operational realities of small independent agents struggling to meet compliance requirements. He projected that the next phase of agency banking will rely heavily on enhanced security infrastructure, biometric verification, and AI-driven fraud detection systems.
According to him, the sector’s growth has demonstrated the viability of agent-led financial services, but sustaining that progress requires policy coherence, stronger oversight, and targeted strategies to close regional and gender-based inclusion gaps.
