A senior source in the Nigerian Communications Commission has alleged that top telecommunications operators are aggressively lobbying regulators and lawmakers to roll back the newly gazetted Digital, Electronic, Online, or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending Regulations 2025, dangling inducements worth “millions of dollars” to slow or dilute enforcement.
The source who pled anonymity warned that if such lobbying efforts succeed, the citizens and the country will be short-changed by an exploitative oligopolist that will stifle the growth of local fintech players.
The regulations, issued by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) in July, mandate greater transparency in digital lending, open market competition, and data privacy protections. They also require telcos offering airtime and data loans to engage at least two intermediaries, one of which must be fully Nigerian-owned — a clause believed to threaten the dominant position of certain multinationals.
MTN’s Xtra Time and Xtra Byte 2.0 products alone have disbursed over ₦2.8 trillion since inception, with a 75:25 revenue split in favour of the telco, according to NCC records. In 2023 alone, ₦46 billion worth of airtime/data loans were granted, totalling ₦1.4 trillion in value.
Jide Akanni, a consumer advocate also expresses similar fears about the market dominance of some of the players in the industry. In an interview with this paper, Mr Akanni noted that “if the lobbying efforts by some of these big telcos succeed and they are able to prevent the implementation of the consumer lending regulation, then Nigeria will lose a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to rein in market dominance and protect millions of digital borrowers from exploitative practices.
