₦airaland Forum

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.

franugo:
I don't understand it, what concerns telcos with cash loans?

sammyscholar:
Thank God you said you didn't understand. You see, you can't understand everything, and you may not necessarily be able to critique what they are doing. That's another person's professional area. Let them do their regulatory job and get this country working.

franugo:
If you understand it, then kindly explain. I'm not sure why you people think being rude is cool.

AndroBlaze:
The main issue seems to be that MTN especially uses a foreign firm (south African of course) to provide the airtime loans to customers, so really when you take an airtime loan from MTN Nigeria it is an SA firm actually loaning you the airtime and sharing profit with MTN.

I am guessing the law they want to pass will make it mandatory for TELCOS to use Nigerian firms to backup the loans, which of course is better for us as a nation.

ogugwa1992:
BIG TELCOS LOBBYING TO KILL NEW LENDING REGULATIONS WITH MILLIONS IN INDUCEMENTS

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https://leaders.ng/2025/08/12/big-telcos-lobbying-to-kill-new-lending-regulations-with-millions-in-inducements/

ebexofficial:
Loan here and there and later they will say people are not paying back the loans, a hungry person can do anything to survive without considering the consequences

franugo:
Thank you.
I had no idea airtime loans were that much of a thing tho, I thought they were talking about cash loan apps and wondered how telcos came into the picture, nice explanation brother.