Poor credit data could stall FG’s loan schemes, E-doc CEO warns

The Chief Executive Officer of E-doc Online, Tunde Ogundipe, has warned that Nigeria’s efforts to expand access to consumer credit could struggle to achieve their targets without stronger financial data infrastructure that enables lenders to properly assess borrowers.

Ogundipe issued the warning while speaking to journalists and creators at the Google office in Lagos.

He argued that expanding credit access must begin with improving access to reliable and verifiable credit data.

What the E-doc CEO is saying

Ogundipe said government-backed lending schemes could provide substantial funding, but lenders would still face difficulties approving loans if they lack sufficient information about applicants’ financial behaviour.

• “Everyone is talking about credit access, and the government deserves credit for moving. But access to credit starts with access to credit data,” he said.
• “You can put billions behind lending schemes, and the loan officer still has to answer one question: who is this person and can they pay? If the data to answer that is locked away or does not exist, the scheme stalls at the counter. That is the problem we have to fix as a country,” he added.

He pointed to the large number of Nigerians whose financial activities do not fit conventional lending models.

According to him, only about 6% of Nigerian adults used credit from a regulated financial institution in the past year, based on EFInA’s most recent Access to Finance survey, while about 26% of adults remain financially excluded.

This leaves a significant population of Nigerians who may have regular income and transaction histories but lack conventional credit records that lenders can use in assessing loan applications.

Get up to speed

Ogundipe’s comments come as the Federal Government steps up efforts to expand consumer lending through the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CrediCorp).

CrediCorp, established in April 2024, has a mandate to expand consumer credit to half of Nigeria’s working population by 2030.

The Corporation recently disclosed that it had facilitated a total of N47.2 billion to 301,928 Nigerians as of July 31, 2026.

The corporation has also entered into a risk sharing arrangement with the National Credit Guarantee Company to encourage lenders to extend more credit.

According to the Corporation, the agreement is designed to reduce lending risks for financial institutions by providing partial credit guarantees, while unlocking more wholesale funding for consumer lending through CREDICORP’s network of Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs).

However, Ogundipe said the availability of funding alone would not resolve the underlying problem if financial institutions cannot reliably determine the creditworthiness of potential borrowers.

Open banking could unlock alternative credit data

Ogundipe said open banking infrastructure could help address the problem by allowing customers to securely share their financial information with authorised third parties.

• E-doc Online, founded in 2021, provides open banking and financial data infrastructure that connects, with customer consent, to bank accounts and transaction histories.
• Its APIs are designed to convert transaction data into automated identity verification, risk assessment and credit decisioning tools that banks, lenders and fintech companies can use.
• The approach could allow lenders to assess customers based on their actual financial behaviour, including deposits, payments and other transaction patterns, rather than relying solely on traditional documentation such as payslips or collateral.

Nigeria has also established a regulatory framework for open banking, with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issuing operational guidelines for the sector in 2023.

Ogundipe said the expansion of open banking would depend heavily on trust between financial institutions, technology companies and consumers.

He said E-doc Online’s strategy is to expand through partnerships with institutions while ensuring customers remain in control of the financial information they choose to share.

• “We are asking banks to open their doors and customers to share their history. You earn that one integration at a time. There is no shortcut, and there should not be,” he said.

What you should know

Nigeria became the first African country to establish an open banking regime after the CBN released its open banking operational guidelines on 7 March 2023, outlining rules on how banks and other financial institutions will access and handle customer data.

The CBN originally targeted a full nationwide commercial launch for August 2025. However, the regulator deferred this date to ensure the architecture prioritizes robust data protection, fully automated user consent controls, and strict cybersecurity.

Open Banking enables the sharing of customer-permissioned data between banks and third-party firms. This system allows banks to securely share their customer data with third-party companies, such as fintech and other financial service providers, with the consent of their customers.