How Moniepoint Quietly Took Over Nigerian Fintech (And Became a Billion-Dollar Giant)
In 2015, in a modest office in Lagos, a quiet revolution was brewing. While the rest of Nigeria buzzed with cash transactions, long queues in banking halls, and a growing digital frustration, two software engineers were sketching the beginnings of what would one day become Moniepoint—a fintech startup that would reshape the way Nigerians interact with money.
At the heart of this story is Tosin Eniolorunda, a soft-spoken but fiercely determined engineer who had just left his job at Interswitch, Nigeria’s biggest digital payments company. He wasn’t starting a company for hype. He wasn’t raising millions from Silicon Valley. In fact, he bootstrapped the entire thing with about ₦15 million from his own pocket—no outside investors, no flashy launch. Just grit, a team of engineers, and one big idea: to build better tools for Nigeria’s banks.
In the early days, Tosin and his team built software that no one saw but everyone used—core banking tools for traditional banks. It was unglamorous work, but it paid the bills and gave them a deep understanding of how Nigeria’s financial system ticked. While others chased headlines, TeamApt (as the company was called then) quietly laid the groundwork for something bigger.
That “something bigger” came in 2019. Tosin saw the same thing many people saw: Nigeria had millions of small business owners, market traders, and rural dwellers with little or no access to formal banking. But unlike most people, he decided to solve it from the ground up. That year, TeamApt launched Moniepoint—a platform that allowed ordinary people to become banking agents. With a small POS machine, these agents could provide essential banking services right from their kiosks: deposits, withdrawals, transfers, airtime top-ups, and more.
It worked. Oh, it worked brilliantly.
By 2021, Moniepoint had become Nigeria’s largest merchant-acquiring platform, processing hundreds of millions of transactions monthly. It provided services to over a million small businesses across all 36 states in Nigeria. The team didn’t stop there. As their agent network matured, Moniepoint began to offer credit services, business management tools, and, eventually, personal banking solutions.
Suddenly, banking wasn’t confined to air-conditioned buildings with marble floors. It was on the street corner. It was in the market. It was wherever the people were. Moniepoint agents popped up in every city, town, and village. By making banking local, simple, and human, Moniepoint didn’t just gain users—it built trust.
But trust alone doesn’t build a billion-dollar company. There were challenges, and plenty of them.
Regulators were skeptical. Banks were threatened. Fraud was rampant in the fintech space, and scaling hardware like POS machines across Nigeria was a logistical nightmare. Moniepoint didn’t always get it right—but it always kept moving. They invested heavily in agent training, customer support, and backend infrastructure. Every time a transaction failed or a POS jammed, they worked to fix it fast. That reliability became their secret weapon.
Then came 2023.
Nigeria experienced a sudden and severe cash crunch. Bank queues stretched for hours. ATMs went dry. Panic spread. But in the chaos, something remarkable happened—people turned to Moniepoint. Their agents became lifelines, dispensing cash and enabling transactions when traditional banks couldn’t. It wasn’t just a financial moment; it was a cultural one. Moniepoint proved it was more than just a fintech—it was a financial backbone.
Moniepoint’s success was particularly evident during Nigeria’s cash shortage in early 2023. When banks were overwhelmed and ATMs were empty, Moniepoint agents became the backbone of financial access in many communities. People lined up at agent kiosks to withdraw cash, pay bills, and run their businesses. This moment cemented Moniepoint’s reputation as a reliable and community-driven solution.
Today, Moniepoint is more than just an agency banking platform. It is a full-stack financial technology company offering business banking, digital payments, credit, compliance tools, and data-driven insights. It continues to innovate while preparing to expand across Africa, beginning with markets like Kenya. The company’s impact on financial inclusion in Nigeria is profound—and it is just getting started.
By 2024, Moniepoint was processing hundreds of millions of transactions every month. Over 1.5 million businesses were using the platform. They weren’t just helping people collect money; they were offering loans, business tools, and digital banking. They were lifting entire communities.
Then came the news: Moniepoint had raised over $110 million from global investors, including Google and Lightrock, valuing the company at over $1 billion. From bootstrapped beginnings to unicorn status, it was one of the most impressive climbs in African tech history.
And yet, for Tosin and his team, the work is far from over. Today, Moniepoint is expanding beyond Nigeria, eyeing markets like Kenya and Ghana. They’re launching new products, including personal banking, payroll tools, and smart credit systems for microbusinesses. But at the core, their mission remains the same—to make finance accessible, simple, and human.
In a world chasing the next big thing, Moniepoint quietly became the big thing.
Not through noise.
Not through hype.
But through execution, trust, and the simple belief that everyday people deserve better financial tools.
And that might just be the most powerful tech story of all.
