Nigerian cross-border fintech Grey has secured an International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO) licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The approval gives the company a direct route into the inbound remittance market as it widens its cross-border services.
An IMTO licence lets a company receive money sent from abroad and pay it out to recipients in Nigeria in naira and only covers inbound transfers.
The news follows the launch of Paycheck, which Grey unveiled on October 29. The product is built for professionals who earn in foreign currencies and want to manage their income in one place, with savings now live and credit to follow in phases. Grey says it serves more than 3 million users in 70 countries.
Grey is also registered with FinCEN in the United States and FINTRAC in Canada. The IMTO licence puts Grey among the operators the CBN has approved directly.
However, it joins a competitive pool. The CBN’s list of approved IMTOs stood at 108 in 2025, up from the 15 IMTOs the country had barely a decade prior.
The growth followed the CBN’s revised guidelines of January 2024, when the apex bank cut the minimum capital for foreign IMTOs to $1 million, from about $12.8 million (₦2 billion) under the 2014 rules.
The CBN, however, lifted the application fee from ₦500,000 to ₦10 million, added an annual renewal fee of the same amount, and introduced two stages of approval: an approval in principle and then a final approval. By the second quarter of 2024, the CBN had given approvals-in-principle to 14 operators.
Other fintechs have taken the same route. Raenest announced its IMTO licence in July 2024, and Cleva in March 2025.
For Grey, which started by helping Nigerian remote workers receive dollars, the licence adds a regulatory layer to a product line that now spans accounts, cards, savings, and credit.
Last updated: November 2, 2026
