OPay is losing Nigeria’s PoS agents to Moniepoint as CBN deadline nears

But that flexibility is about to disappear. On April 1, 2026, a new rule from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) takes effect, forcing PoS agents to operate under a single principal.

The rule has effectively put Moniepoint and OPay, Nigeria’s leading PoS merchant acquirers, in a race to retain agents.

In a survey of nine random PoS agents in a town in Ekiti State, Condia observes the shifting dynamics in the agent banking sector as the deadline approaches.

All of the nine active PoS operators used a Moniepoint terminal as their primary device. Some still owned OPay terminals but said they increasingly kept them in drawers.

When asked why they were consolidating their business on Moniepoint, one agent said: “Many of the OPay terminals are not Android. Also, Moniepoint is fast and hardly loses connection. If Moniepoint has no network, then no other terminal will have a strong connection either.”

When asked which fintech he would choose ahead of the April 1 deadline, the agent mentioned Moniepoint without hesitation. “Even now, I hardly use the OPay terminal,” he said.

Another agent cited accessibility as the deciding factor.

“I stopped using OPay because they didn’t have an office in Ekiti,” he explained. “If the terminal developed an issue, we had to take it to Akure, and they would still charge us. That was why I stopped using it.”

He also pointed to technical reliability. “I use PalmPay too, but Moniepoint terminals read cards that my PalmPay terminal won’t read,” he said.

The shift observed in Ekiti mirrors broader market trends showing a widening gap in how the two fintech giants perform among professional agents.

As of 2023, OPay led Nigeria’s PoS market with 563,252 agents, compared with Moniepoint’s 303,946. But by 2025, Moniepoint says it has deployed over one million terminals, processing ₦10 trillion in monthly transactions and accounting for about 80% of the country’s PoS activity.

The CBN’s mandate is clear: by April 1, 2026, every PoS agent must be affiliated with a single principal institution. The rule legally ties agents to their provider, meaning any failure in the provider’s infrastructure is a direct failure of the agent’s business.

The CBN has also introduced severe penalties for non-compliance, including BVN blacklisting for agents involved in fraud. 

Why Moniepoint is winning

Historically, Opay won by being everywhere. Its low entry barrier and massive retail wallet integration made it the default choice for the casual PoS operator. But as the market moves from mass acquisition to high-stakes loyalty, OPay’s retail-centric brand is struggling to keep pace with Moniepoint’s business-first architecture.

Moniepoint has successfully captured the value game. As the CBN’s exclusivity rule forces agents to choose a single partner, the platform processing the largest share of transactions is increasingly becoming the anchor of choice.

OPay’s historical success was driven by its consumer-first strategy, which allowed them to build a larger agent network quickly. However, Moniepoint’s data showed a higher average transaction value (ATV) per agent, indicating that while OPay had more points of presence, Moniepoint was moving more meaningful business volume.

Moniepoint’s series of funding rounds, culminating in the $250 million Series C, was designed to shift the company from a payment processor into a full-stack “business operating system.”

Between 2023 and 2024, both fintechs benefited immensely from the instability of traditional banking channels. However, Moniepoint’s data indicated a stronger pivot toward professional B2B services, which insulated them somewhat from the pure price-war volatility that affected retail-focused players.

While OPay continues to lead in retail wallet users, Moniepoint has spent the last 24 months positioning itself as an operating system for small businesses. It offers inventory management, tax support, and working capital loans. By embedding itself into the day-to-day operations of the merchant, Moniepoint has made the cost of switching significantly higher. If you switch, you lose all the benefits.

Its reputation for reliability has also become a competitive moat. When agents are forced to marry one provider, they are choosing the partner they perceive as the most stable.

“My OPay terminal is in the drawer,” one agent told Condia.

As the April 1 deadline approaches, thousands of OPay devices that were once active in Ekiti and beyond could be returned as agents consolidate around a single partner. For OPay, this would mean losing a significant portion of the physical presence that helped it scale its agent network across Nigeria.

Unless OPay convinces professional PoS agents that its infrastructure is as reliable as its consumer wallet is popular, the company risks seeing parts of its agent network shift to rivals.

Evolution of OPay (2018–2023)

The following table summarizes the key milestones that defined OPay’s scaling during this period:

The working capital strategy

Moniepoint’s credit strategy has been a key driver of its market dominance, specifically by turning transaction data into a tool for underwriting loans that traditional banks would ignore.

Before its Series C funding, Moniepoint had already begun positioning itself as a credit provider, leveraging its proprietary PoS data to assess risk. After its Series C funding, the scale of lending appeared to accelerate significantly. In its 2025 Year-in-Review, it announced it had disbursed over ₦1 trillion in credit to approximately 70,000 Nigerian businesses.

These loans are primarily aimed at providing working capital for inventory and business expansion. By analyzing payment patterns, they reported that businesses accessing these loans saw an average 36% increase in transaction value, effectively creating a virtuous cycle where the loan powers the business, and the increased business drives more transaction fees for Moniepoint.

This lending strategy is a critical reason why Moniepoint is winning the agent exclusivity race. For the business owner, Moniepoint is a financial partner that can provide the capital needed to grow their shop. Switching away from Moniepoint now means losing access to these tailored working capital loans, which are often a lifeline for inventory-heavy businesses.

While OPay maintains a strong lead in the consumer space, primarily through its mobile app, which is widely used for peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers, airtime/data purchases, and everyday retail payments, Moniepoint has successfully used its lending power to become a sticky utility that agents cannot easily abandon.

As the CBN’s deadline approaches, the quiet competition between Moniepoint and OPay is revealing a deeper truth about Nigeria’s agent banking industry: when exclusivity is enforced, reliability becomes the ultimate currency.

Last updated: March 11, 2026