CBN Bans Opay,Moniepoint,Kuda Bank, Others From Onboarding New Customers

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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has barred some microfinance banks, including Moniepoint, Opay and Kuda Bank from opening new accounts and accepting new customers until further notice.

BrandSpur Nigeria understands that the ban was issued following allegations that the fintech banks were being used to funnel cryptocurrency and manipulate the naira’s value.

Sources told Gazette that the CBN deemed the new-account-ban necessary to curb money-laundering activities which have seen the naira again plunge against the dollar in recent days.

However, in a message on its platform on Friday, Moniepoint said it has temporarily paused new sign-ups for intending customers.

It wrote: “Hello! We’ve temporarily paused new sign-ups on our platform.

“This means that you’ll be unable to open a new account at the moment. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

The naira, as of Monday evening, traded at N1350 against the dollar, which is a regression against the steady climb that the Nigerian currency has made over the past few weeks as it traded to N950 in early April.

Following the drastic depreciation of the naira in February which nearly exchanged at N2000 to a dollar, CBN, in collaboration with anti-graft commission, EFCC, cracked down on Binance and detained its executives Tigran Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and British-Kenyan Nadeem Anjarwalla over accusations of naira manipulation.

The Nigerian government demanded that Binance release the names of its top 100 users and their transactions to negotiate the release of the detained executives.