By Emmanuel Elebeke
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has licensed Paga to launch its unique mobile money service in Nigeria.
Having received the go ahead from the apex bank, Paga is set to launch in early 2011 with four products directly targeted at resolving pain points that Nigerians have to contend with today when it comes to cash: money transfer, bill payments, mobile phone airtime top-up, and merchant payments.

The service is underpinned by a secure and innovative payments platform built with the flexibility to operate in any environment and on the most basic mobile phone.

Paga will be available on all mobile networks and delivered to customers in partnership with strong local banks, microfinance institutions, retailers, NGOs, and public sector organisations to achieve its mission of bringing affordable and reliable financial services to a larger segment of the Nigerian population. The company is expected to publicly announce several major partnerships in the coming weeks.

According to Tayo Oviosu, Paga’s Founder and CEO, “The CBN has made clear its goal to bring high quality financial services to an even broader segment of the population and we commend our regulator for laying the strong foundation for this to occur. At Paga, we are driven by the simple idea that the ubiquity of the mobile phone has created an avenue to transform lives across Africa in many different ways. Paga will be at the forefront of this transformation.”

On the back of a highly successful and on-going pilot kicked off in Lagos this past September, the Paga team has made refinements and positioned for a nationwide launch. “The pilot phase allowed us to gain good feedback from customers and merchants as we finalise for launch” says Jay Alabraba, co-founder of Paga.

“We are processing applications from merchants as we build our nationwide network of Paga agents.

We are on track to have 5,000 agents by launch. So far it’s clear that one major attraction to Paga is the simplicity of our interface and the opportunity for merchants to make a commission on every transaction they perform.”

Paga is focused on its mission to expand financial access in Nigeria. “Currently, over 80% of Nigerians are unbanked. Even more use very unsafe and expensive means to send money or pay for goods and services on a regular basis. With Paga, anybody with a mobile phone, regardless of their location or the network they are on can access a safe and convenient means of transferring money, paying billers or merchants, buying or sending airtime to others, etc.

Paga will change the way people think about cash. It will change the way people live, positively.” says Aisha Bashir, co-founder of Paga.

According to the EFInA Access to Financial Services in Nigeria 2010 Survey, Nigeria lags behind South Africa, Botswana, and Kenya in terms of the percentage of the population who are financially served. The growth in financially served population in many of these markets is mainly attributable to their mobile money offerings.

According to EFInA, 23% of Nigerians are already comfortable with using their mobile phone to receive money, send money, or pay bills. These findings clearly demonstrate the potential for services like Paga to bring financial services to the broader public.