MTN Nigeria yesterday said its subsidiary, Yello Digital Financial Services Limited (YDFS) has been granted a full Super Agent Licence by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The licence will enable the telco to convert its existing airtime agents and recruit other small businesses to distribute financial services and scale the launch of its fintech strategy.
YDFS received approval in principle for its Super-Agent Licence in December last year and has been conducting a pilot project since then to meet the conditions of a full licence. The successful pilot has now led to the granting of a full licence under which YDFS will distribute financial services across the country.
Commenting on the licence, its CEO Ferdi Moolman, said: “We are very pleased that YDFS has been granted a Super-Agent Licence, which enables us to extend access to financial services to a much broader group of Nigerians. This forms part of our commitment to contribute towards the achievement of Nigeria’s financial inclusion goals. Through the network established by YDFS MTN is in a position to broaden the availability of financial services for the under-served across the country.
“This marks a very important first step in leveraging our infrastructure to scale our Fintech initiatives. We have also applied for a Payment Service Bank Licence, which will enable us in time to offer a broader and deeper range of financial services to those communities and we remain hopeful we will receive approval shortly.”
