The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has issued a stern warning to fintech companies, announcing its intent to blacklist and report firms found enabling unregistered Point of Sale (PoS) operators to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for regulatory action. This threat, delivered in a public notice on Saturday, December 6, describes the practice as “reckless” and detrimental to Nigeria’s financial system. It specifically targets the prevalent business model that has fueled the rapid expansion of mobile money operations across Nigeria, where fintech platforms often grow their agent networks without strictly ensuring compliance with registration requirements.

Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, the Registrar-General and CEO of the Corporate Affairs Commission, highlighted the significant role of dominant players in Nigeria’s agency banking ecosystem, namely Opay, Moniepoint, and Palmpay. According to a 2023 report, Opay leads with over 563,000 agents, accounting for approximately 37 percent of all banking agents. Moniepoint follows with more than 303,000 agents, capturing about 20 percent of the market, while Palmpay publicly stated in June 2023 that it had surpassed 500,000 PoS agents nationwide. These fintech companies collectively control the majority of Nigeria’s estimated 1.9 million PoS agents, placing them at the forefront of the CAC’s enforcement efforts. The Commission's statement unequivocally asserts that the responsibility for ensuring agent compliance extends beyond individual operators to the fintech platforms that supply them with terminals and infrastructure.

This CAC warning coincides with an unprecedented surge in PoS transaction volumes across Nigeria. Data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System reveals that PoS terminals processed 10.51 trillion naira in the first quarter of 2025, marking a substantial 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 PoS sector has become an indispensable component of Nigeria’s payments infrastructure.

To address this, the Commission has mandated that effective January 1, 2026, no PoS operator will be permitted to conduct business without CAC registration. This directive will be enforced nationwide by security agencies, with unregistered terminals facing seizure or shutdown. The CAC views the proliferation of unregistered operators as a clear violation of both the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020 and the CBN Agent Banking Regulations, warning that such operations pose significant risks to citizens’ investments.

This latest move marks the Commission’s second significant attempt to enforce registration requirements on PoS operators. In May 2024, the CAC previously issued a directive requiring agents under fintech platforms to register by July 7, 2024, a deadline that was subsequently extended to September 5, 2024, accompanied by threats of prosecution and business closure for non-compliance. However, that prior enforcement initiative encountered resistance from the Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria, which contended that the requirement conflicted with provisions in the 2004 Companies and Allied Matters Act, leading to a legal dispute with court hearings scheduled for September.

The threat of reporting non-compliant fintech firms to the CBN carries substantial weight, particularly given the increasing regulatory pressures already impacting the sector. In August 2025, the CBN imposed restrictions mandating that all PoS terminals operate within a 10-meter radius of their registered addresses, an initiative aimed at combating fraud and enhancing oversight. Statistics from the apex bank indicate that PoS channels were responsible for 26.37 percent of all fraud incidents in 2023. More recently, in October 2025, the CBN introduced comprehensive new agent banking guidelines. These guidelines will compel PoS operators to establish exclusive relationships with a single principal institution by April 1, 2026, effectively prohibiting the common practice of agents operating terminals for multiple fintech platforms simultaneously to maximize transaction volumes. While the CAC emphasized the mandatory nature of compliance, the Commission did not specify what additional penalties the apex bank might impose.