By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Customers intending to open bank accounts with leading financial technology (fintech) firms in Nigeria like Opay, Moniepoint, Kuda and PalmPay may have to wait a little bit longer to do so.
This is because these companies have suspended account opening for new customers, allegedly on the directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Reports say this is coming at a time when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is investigating about 1,146 accounts suspected to be involved in illegal foreign exchange (FX) transactions.
It was earlier reported that the anti-money laundering agency obtained a court order to freeze the suspected accounts over allegations of Naira manipulation.
The affected digital banks were directed by the CBN, which regulates the banking industry in the country, not to onboard new customers till further notice.
As a result of this, the account opening feature on the mobile applications of the affected banks is not operational at the time of filing this report.
“Thank you for downloading OPay. Sign up is currently unavailable. Please check back later,” a message on OPay read.
“Thank you for downloading PalmPay. Sign up is currently unavailable. Please check later,” the same message was put up by PalmPay.
As for Moniepoint, while attempting to open an account, returned with a validation failed message that read, “Thank you for downloading Moniepoint. Sign up is currently unavailable. Please check back later.”
Similarly, Kuda responded with, “Sorry, we couldn’t complete your account opening process. We’ll let you know as soon as we can.”
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