How Moniepoint Built Africa’s Financial Backbone for the Unbanked

In Nigeria and across much of Sub-Saharan Africa, the challenge facing economic growth is not just a lack of capital, but a severe deficit in reliable financial infrastructure. Millions of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) struggle with unstable payment systems, limited access to banking services, and an inability to secure working capital. In communities where "cash is king," this technological gap is a massive barrier to economic inclusion.

Moniepoint Inc. (formerly known as TeamApt) has risen to meet this challenge. This Nigerian unicorn has moved far beyond simple digital banking to become an all-in-one financial platform and the effective financial infrastructure backbone for underserved communities, connecting over a million merchants and agents to the digital economy.

The core of Moniepoint's success lies in addressing the single biggest pain point in African fintech: reliability.

• The Agent Network: Moniepoint leverages a massive network of over a million agents and merchants who use its proprietary Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals. These agents serve as human ATMs and digital cash-in/cash-out points in areas with no bank branches, bringing essential services directly to the community.
• Business Banking: The platform provides SMEs with dedicated business accounts, easy transfer facilities, and the digital tools necessary to manage their finances, helping them formalize their operations.
• Credit Access: Crucially, Moniepoint uses the transaction data generated by its merchants to de-risk them and provide working capital loans and micro-credit, solving a major obstacle to growth that traditional banks ignore.

By prioritizing transaction success and network stability, Moniepoint has built a service that is trusted by the community, allowing digital finance to truly displace cash reliance.

The Visionary: Tosin Eniolorunda and the Birth of a Unicorn

Moniepoint’s genesis is rooted in a deep understanding of infrastructure failure. CEO and Co-founder Tosin Eniolorunda—a seasoned software engineer who honed his skills at major Nigerian payment processors like Interswitch—recognized that the problem wasn't a shortage of people wanting to use digital finance, but the frustrating frequency with which transactions failed.

"Banking infrastructure was prone to failure, often leaving transactions stuck and frustrating both businesses and customers," Eniolorunda observed.

The Solution: Founded in 2015, the initial strategy was to build more reliable infrastructure for other financial institutions. The pivotal shift came when the team realized they could solve the reliability problem directly. By creating their own resilient, proprietary platform and placing their robust POS terminals directly in the hands of agents, they controlled the entire experience, ensuring success rates far above industry standards.

This relentless focus on "Financial Happiness for Every African" propelled Moniepoint to unicorn status in late 2024. Today, it stands as a testament to the power of solving core infrastructure problems with world-class technology, ensuring that access to the digital economy is a right, not a privilege, for millions of African small businesses.