The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has announced its intention to place fintech companies on notice, warning that firms found enabling unregistered Point of Sale (PoS) operators will face blacklisting and be reported to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for regulatory action.
This stern warning was issued in a public notice on Saturday, December 6, with the CAC describing the practice as "reckless" and detrimental to Nigeria’s financial system. The warning specifically targets the business model that has fueled the rapid expansion of mobile money operations across Nigeria, where fintech platforms have aggressively grown their agent networks without adequately ensuring compliance with registration requirements.
Opay, Moniepoint, and Palmpay are identified as the dominant players in Nigeria’s agency banking ecosystem. According to a 2023 report, Opay operates the largest agent network in the country with over 563,000 agents, representing approximately 37 percent of all banking agents. Moniepoint follows with more than 303,000 agents, capturing about 20 percent of the market. Palmpay publicly disclosed in June 2023 that it had surpassed 500,000 PoS agents nationwide. Collectively, these fintech companies manage the majority of Nigeria’s estimated 1.9 million PoS agents, placing them at the core of the CAC’s impending enforcement action.
The Commission's statement clarifies that the responsibility for ensuring agent compliance extends directly to the fintech platforms that provide terminals and infrastructure, not just to individual operators.
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Rising PoS Transaction Volumes and Regulatory Scrutiny
The CAC's warning arrives as PoS transaction volumes have reached record highs. Data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) indicates that PoS terminals processed 10.51 trillion naira in the first quarter of 2025, a significant 301.67 percent increase from the previous year. With 8.36 million registered PoS terminals nationwide and 5.90 million actively deployed as of March 2025, the sector has become a crucial component of Nigeria’s payments infrastructure.
The Commission has stipulated that effective January 1, 2026, no PoS operator will be permitted to conduct business without CAC registration. Security agencies are tasked with enforcing this directive nationwide, and unregistered terminals will be subject to seizure or shutdown. The CAC has characterized the surge in unregistered operators as a violation of both the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020 and CBN Agent Banking Regulations, highlighting the risks posed to citizens' investments.
Previous Enforcement Attempts and Industry Resistance
This marks the CAC's second significant effort to enforce registration requirements on PoS operators. In May 2024, the CAC issued a directive requiring agents under fintech platforms to register by July 7, 2024. This deadline was later extended to September 5, 2024, with explicit threats of prosecution and business closure for non-compliance.
However, that enforcement initiative encountered resistance from the Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria, which contended that the registration requirement conflicted with provisions in the 2004 Companies and Allied Matters Act. This dispute led to legal action, with court hearings scheduled for September.
CBN's Expanding Regulatory Framework for PoS Operations
The threat to report non-compliant fintech firms to the CBN carries substantial weight, considering the existing regulatory pressures on the sector. In August 2025, the CBN implemented restrictions mandating that all PoS terminals operate within a 10-meter radius of their registered addresses, a measure aimed at combating fraud and enhancing oversight. The apex bank's data revealed that PoS channels accounted for 26.37 percent of all fraud incidents in 2023.
More recently, in October 2025, the CBN issued comprehensive new agent banking guidelines that will compel PoS operators to establish exclusive relationships with a single principal institution by April 1, 2026. These new rules prohibit agents from operating terminals for multiple fintech platforms concurrently, a practice that has enabled operators to maximize transaction volumes. The CAC has reiterated the mandatory nature of compliance, although the Commission has not specified the additional penalties the apex bank might impose.