Africa’s Most-Populous Nation Missed the Mobile Money Revolution
Nigeria is a laggard in a region that accounts for half of the world’s 866 million mobile banking and payment accounts.
When it comes to banking by phone, Nigeria is way behind its neighbors.
Photographer: Bernard Kalu for Bloomberg Markets
Every month, Ifeyinwa Abel, the secretary of a Pentecostal church in Lagos, spends as much as a quarter of her salary sending money to pay for diabetes drugs to her mother 430 miles away in Abia Ohafia, a small agricultural village.
It isn’t easy. First Abel, 35, has to go to a bank branch in Lagos, the country’s commercial hub, and transfer 6,000 naira ($17) into the account of a friend in Ebem Ohafia, another town in Abia state. Then she’s got to pay 2,000 naira to 4,000 naira for her 65-year-old mother, Uche Arua, to get on the back of a motorcycle and ride 8 miles from her village to Ebem Ohafia to pick up the money.