Users of various mobile payment apps in Nigeria in 2020, with forecasts to 2025
the country's leading telecom carriers - did not receive mobile banking licenses years after applying for them. In early 2021, also, the central bank banned cryptocurrencies within Nigeria.
The mobile wallet from Nigeria's Paga is expected to reach a number of users by 2025 that is higher than that of four other wallets combined. Paga is regarded as the country's biggest fintech, as it was responsible for over two billion U.S. dollars of transactions in 2020. This follows after an early adoption of mobile payments in the 2010s within Nigeria, fueled by regulatory changes from the Central Bank of Nigeria which created an instant payment infrastructure. In more recent years, however, the country's central bank faced increasing criticism for its broader mobile payment policies. For instance, MTN and Airtel - some of