The Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) has said it is now set to deliver financial services across Nigeria and beyond, leveraging its International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO) and Super Agent licenses.
The Service is banking on these two new services and its e-commerce drive to further push its revenue, which surpassed N10 billion last year.
...master General and CEO of NIPOST, Tola Odeyemi, disclosed this during a Channels TV interview monitored by Naijaonpoint.
According to her, the Service has renewed its licenses with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and paid some fines to begin delivery of financial services after about eight years since the business was shut down.
“NIPOST has two licenses, a Super Agents license as well as an International Money Transfer Operator license. Unfortunately, something had happened with that IMTO license, and it was shut down for about seven, eight years.
“But last year, we were able to pay off all the fines, and it’s now back up,” she said.
To facilitate cross-border payments and remittance, Odetola said NIPOST has begun signing bilateral agreements with different countries.
According to her, African countries are the main target because that is where most Nigerians face challenges in cross-border payments.
“Sending money from Cameroon to Nigeria is harder than sending money from the U.S. to Nigeria. So, right now we’ve signed bilaterals with Togo, Benin, and I think a couple of other countries.
“There’s a particular agreement that right now is going through the justice system,” she said.
While disclosing that the agency exceeded the N10 billion annual benchmark last year, Odetola said that the record would become insignificant with the new push into other businesses.
“We actually surpassed N10 billion last year, and that was just by digitizing some of our processes and plugging leakages.
“I think for the Nigerian Postal Service, N10 billion naira is a scratch,” she added.
Last year, Naijaonpoint reported that NIPOST was targeting N10 billion in revenue for the year.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, had, on assumption of office, asked Nigerians to suggest how NIPOST could be repositioned to make an impact in the digital economy.