Nigeria’s financial landscape has been undergoing a quiet but significant transformation, and at the heart of it are Payment Service Banks (PSBs).
Designed to deepen financial inclusion, PSBs are bridging the gap between traditional banks and the millions of Nigerians who remain outside the formal financial system.
Payment Service Banks are a special category of banks licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to offer basic financial services, especially to people in rural areas and the unbanked population.
They are not full-fledged commercial banks, but they play a critical role in making financial services accessible to underserved communities.
The CBN introduced PSBs in 2018 as part of its broader financial inclusion strategy aimed at bringing 95% of Nigerians into the formal financial system.
The idea was simple: if mobile network operators, fintechs, and other non-traditional players could leverage their wide reach and technology, they could deliver banking services faster and more efficiently than conventional banks in remote areas.
Currently, licensed PSBs in Nigeria include MTN’s MoMo Payment Service Bank, Airtel’s SmartCash PSB, 9PSB (9mobile’s subsidiary), Hope PSBank, and Globacom’s MoneyMaster PSB.
Interestingly, out of the five licensed PSBs, four are owned by mobile network operators.
By regulation, PSBs are allowed to perform a limited range of banking and payment-related services. Their focus is not on corporate banking or complex lending, but on simple, high-impact financial transactions that can improve everyday lives.
Here are the 5 individuals piloting the affairs of these PSBs to bridge the digital inclusion gap in Nigeria.
Tunde Kuponiyi leads SmartCash PSB, the fintech subsidiary of Airtel Nigeria. He is a seasoned banking executive with over 24 years of expertise in various aspects of the banking sector, including Marketing, Treasury, Operations, Product Development, and e-Banking.
With core banking experience at Ecobank, Kuponiyi became the pioneer Managing Director of Hope PSBank, a position he held between December 2019 and November 2022. He later moved to Globacom’s MoneyMaster PSB, where he also served as the company’s CEO from November 2022 to June 2024.
SmartCash, under Kuponiyi’s leadership, recently announced Zero-Charges, a total removal of transaction fees across all interbank transfers, bill payments, and short message service (SMS) notifications. According to him, the innovation was introduced to ease financial pressure on households and small businesses while accelerating broader financial inclusion across Nigeria.
He holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of Liverpool (2008-2010).
