Moniepoint Microfinance Bank has emerged as a dominant force in Nigeria’s digital payments landscape, processing a staggering ₦412 trillion worth of transactions while disbursing over ₦1 trillion in loans throughout 2025, according to figures released by its parent company, Moniepoint Inc., on Thursday.
The remarkable performance, detailed in the company’s 2025 Year in Review report, underscores the increasingly vital role that fintech platforms are playing in powering Nigeria’s vast informal economy, where traditional banking infrastructure has historically struggled to gain traction.
Perhaps most striking is Moniepoint MFB’s claim to process approximately 80% of Nigeria’s in-person payment transactions—a market share that would position the microfinance bank as the country’s leading player in point-of-sale and physical retail payments. The company reported handling more than 14 billion individual transactions across both physical and digital channels during the year.
“These numbers reflect a fundamental shift in how Nigerian businesses handle money,” said financial technology analyst Chioma Okonkwo of Lagos-based research firm Digital Economy Insights. “Moniepoint has essentially become the payment backbone for millions of small businesses that were previously operating on a cash-only basis.”
The company’s web payment gateway, Monnify, separately processed N25 trillion in transactions, driven primarily by business-to-business payments and the broader digitization of commercial activities across Nigeria’s economy.
Beyond payments infrastructure, Moniepoint’s lending operations tell a compelling story about financial inclusion in Africa’s largest economy. The company said its loan disbursements—totaling over N1 trillion in 2025—were primarily directed toward small and medium-sized enterprises, including neighborhood provision stores, supermarkets, and building materials traders.
According to Moniepoint’s data, businesses that received loans through the platform recorded average revenue growth exceeding 36% following their credit access. The company now serves more than 6 million active businesses nationwide, a customer base that represents a significant portion of Nigeria’s SME sector.
The fintech’s approach to creditworthiness assessment relies on alternative data sources, including transaction histories and payment behavior patterns, rather than traditional collateral requirements or credit scores that often exclude informal sector operators.
“We’re not looking at what collateral you can put down,” explained Group CEO Tosin Eniolorunda in the report. “We’re looking at how your business actually performs day-to-day. That data tells us more about your ability to repay than any property deed could.”
Moniepoint’s figures align with broader trends in Nigeria’s fintech sector, where digital lenders are increasingly filling gaps left by traditional banks. FairMoney MFB, another prominent player, recently disclosed that it disbursed over ₦150 billion in loans to small businesses during the same period.
Industry observers note that Nigerian fintechs have been able to scale credit operations rapidly by leveraging technology to reduce processing costs and by accepting higher risk profiles than conventional banks typically would.
Beyond its core payments and lending operations, 2025 marked a year of significant expansion for Moniepoint across multiple fronts.
The microfinance bank relaunched its savings product, with internal data revealing that daily savings deposits were the most common user behavior. Education expenses, business operations, and rent payments topped the list of savings purposes among customers.
On the regulatory front, the company secured a national microfinance bank license, upgrading its operational scope and regulatory standing. It also launched Moniebook, though details about this product remain limited.
Perhaps most significantly for its international ambitions, TeamApt Ltd.—Moniepoint’s switching and processing subsidiary—obtained both Mastercard and Visa licenses to operate as a processor and acquirer. This regulatory milestone positions the company to facilitate international card payments and provide switching services across the African continent, potentially extending its reach far beyond Nigeria’s borders.
In his statement accompanying the year-end report, CEO Eniolorunda framed Moniepoint’s mission in continental terms, emphasizing the company’s focus on Africa’s predominantly informal economic landscape.
“Our focus remains on building financial infrastructure to support Africa’s largely informal economy, which accounts for about 83% of employment across the continent,” Eniolorunda said, signaling the company’s broader ambitions beyond Nigeria.
The figure he cited—that informal economic activity represents over four-fifths of employment across Africa—highlights both the scale of the opportunity and the challenge facing financial technology companies seeking to serve these markets.
While Moniepoint’s growth trajectory has been celebrated by supporters of financial inclusion, some analysts have raised questions about the sustainability of such rapid expansion and the potential risks of market concentration in critical payment infrastructure.
The claim that a single microfinance bank processes 80% of in-person payments nationwide would represent an extraordinary level of market dominance, though independent verification of this figure is not yet available. If accurate, it could eventually draw regulatory scrutiny regarding systemic importance and competitive dynamics in Nigeria’s payments sector.
As Nigerian fintechs continue to reshape the country’s financial landscape, Moniepoint’s 2025 performance positions it as a bellwether for the sector—and a test case for whether technology-driven financial inclusion can achieve both scale and sustainability in emerging markets.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Moniepoint has become Nigeria’s payment infrastructure powerhouse, processing ₦412 trillion in transactions and claiming an extraordinary 80% share of the country’s in-person payments in 2025.
The fintech is revolutionizing access to credit for small businesses by disbursing over ₦1 trillion in loans using transaction data instead of traditional collateral—demonstrating how technology can unlock financial services for Africa’s massive informal economy, which employs 83% of the continent’s workforce.
This represents a fundamental shift in how millions of previously unbanked Nigerian businesses now handle money and access growth capital.
