Interview by: Pauline Chinasa
The recent advent of fintech companies in Nigeria brought with it the expansion of the country’s financial sector, with attendant removal of bureaucracy in account opening/operation procedures, quicker transactions time-outs/responses, better money lending/borrowing opportunities and other industry innovations.
But in recent times, there have been complaints by fintech companies’ customers mainly of financial losses, a lot of times generated by failures of pos machines, internet networks and possibly, interbank complexities.
FirstNigeriaTV’s Pauline Chinasa visited the popular Mosafejo Market, Oshodi, Lagos and interacted with a good number of traders who employed fintech companies’ pos units for monetary transactions, as well as some goods’ buyers who paid for wares with their fintech accounts.o1
The following is an excerpt of her chats with some individuals at the market:
A trader in children’s wears and cosmetics, Mrs Atinuke Ajayi lamented the losses she had made via pos transactions machine she uses for her revenue collection.
“Although the pos machine system is good because it guarantees better customer records and also influences them to buy more without raw cash, the major problem I’ve had with it is transaction confirmation notice delay. Several times, I had lost money when a customer pays for goods and alert is delayed by which time I would have allowed the customer to go with the goods only to later find out that the transaction did not initially pull through”, she said.
She added that though the lateness occurred with all banks irrespective of fintech or commercial, the major problem was that while it was certain to retrieve such monies from the commercial banks, it took only divine intervention to get the monies back from the fintechs.
A trader in foodstuffs, Mr. Emeka Profile also said that although he enjoyed the better opportunities of money borrowing offered by the fintech companies but the major snag was the wickedly high interest rates attached to such lendings.
“For Christ’s sake, when you lend me about N100,000 and expect me to pay back N140,000 at the end of one month, what kind of business am I supposed to use in generating that kind of return?”, he said.
Our reporter Chinasa was fortunate to meet a buyer in the market named Busayo Onipede who also bitterly complained about losses she had incurred while withdrawing funds from her account as well as paying for goods and services.
“In a space of about a year backwards, I have incurred monetary losses three times through pos transactions via a particular finbank. At each of those times, I had laid a complaint to the bank, including visiting their main office at Opebi Road , Ikeja, Lagos but up till this moment, those funds have not been returned”, she said.
