By Divine Sam
PalmPay has been honored with the Financial Inclusion Agent of the Year and Key Driver of Financial Inclusion awards at the 2024 International Financial Inclusion Conference (IFIC), held in Lagos on November 13-14. The event, hosted by the National Financial Inclusion Governance Committees, aimed to address the role of financial inclusion in Nigeria’s economic development.
PalmPay’s recognition highlights its efforts to drive financial inclusion across Nigeria through an accessible mobile platform and a vast network of over 500,000 mobile money agents. The fintech company has reached 35 million users, with a third of them identifying PalmPay as their first-ever financial account. PalmPay’s services have expanded to include both smartphone users and those without smartphones, ensuring inclusivity for the unbanked.
Key to their success has been a 99.95% success rate in payments, making online transactions more reliable in a market where failure rates were previously high. Additionally, PalmPay’s customer-centric model, offering free bank transfers, discounts, and cashback on various transactions, has furthered its growth in the competitive Nigerian market. The company also launched USSD services for offline transactions and API services for businesses.
PalmPay aims to build a comprehensive financial ecosystem with services that cater to both individual consumers and businesses. Since its launch in 2019 under a Mobile Money Operator license, it has become a key player in promoting financial empowerment across Africa, reaching over 1.2 million MSMEs.
This recognition underscores PalmPay’s transformative impact on Nigeria’s financial inclusion, contributing to the country’s ambitious goal of achieving 95% financial inclusion by the end of 2024.