If you live in Nigeria or most parts of Africa, you’re familiar with the sight of mobile money agents, or in Nigeria’s case, POS agents. Over the last decade or so, they’ve been instrumental in delivering financial services to the last mile, decongesting banking halls and ATM queues in the process.
But they are fast becoming an endangered species, especially in Nigeria.
In the last three years, there’s been a rise of what, for lack of a better word, I would call an anti-agent sentiment. There’s growing dissatisfaction among Nigerians over what many have termed unfair practices by POS agents. The argument is that withdrawing money through an agent has become more expensive than using an ATM, defeating the purpose of their existence. Many now say they have to “pay” to access their own money. Despite the vast majority of Nigerians accessing financial services through them, many baulk at the cost of using them.
I won’t litigate that argument in depth here. It is worth noting, however, that transaction fees are not unique to POS agents. For much of modern banking history, accessing financial services has come at a cost. Banks themselves, for instance, have valid economic reasons for limiting ATM expansion, including infrastructure and maintenance costs — factors that the Central Bank of Nigeria is now attempting to address.
Instead of dwelling on present grievances, it may be more useful to ask a forward-looking question: what does the future hold for POS agents, and how can their relevance be sustained or even expanded?
Because, despite the backlash, the factors that made POS agents successful in the first place have not disappeared. If anything, they’ve become even more relevant. To understand that, we have to go back a bit.
Agents are hardly new to Nigerians
In their current form, agents are not new to most Nigerians. Only about 20 years ago, the only way to buy airtime was through a small shop in your neighbourhood. These small shops were, in many ways, the precursors to today’s agent networks: trusted local businesses embedded within communities, facilitating access to essential services.
Later, when Nigerian fintechs began trying to reach people who needed financial services the most, they turned to these same small business owners — people with foot traffic and trust in their communities — and effectively turned them into human ATMs. As one industry professional once shared, the inspiration for POS agents came from watching thousands of people hand over their cards and even their PINs to someone else to help them complete transactions.
Formalising that behaviour through technology gave us the agent networks we now take for granted. To chart a course for their future, we also need to understand why they matter in the first place. The primary reasons are convenience and access.
Victoria Fakiya – Senior Writer
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Older Nigerians will remember what it was like before agents. You could spend hours, sometimes the better part of a day, trying to withdraw cash. ATMs were few and far between, often empty, and mostly located within bank premises. You might take a bus or two just to find one, only to discover it wasn’t working. Weekends were particularly chaotic as people scrambled to secure cash for errands, social activities, or emergencies.
That reality hasn’t entirely disappeared. It has just been masked by the rise of agents. They brought financial services closer to where people lived and worked, dramatically reducing both travel time and uncertainty. Even today, their value lies in this proximity and reliability. Beyond cash withdrawals and deposits, many agents now facilitate bill payments, transfers, and even card issuance — services that once required visiting a bank branch and, often, multiple days of processing.
This is where things get interesting. While more Nigerians own smartphones today than they did a decade ago, the structure of the economy hasn’t changed nearly as much. The vast majority of economic activity still happens in the informal sector. This matters because informal economies run on proximity, trust, and human relationships, not just apps. And that’s why agents continue to thrive.
Companies like OPay and Moniepoint have built extensive distribution networks by embedding themselves within this informal economy. With millions of terminals deployed, they have something many startups struggle to build: physical presence and trust at scale.
This is also why penetration becomes easier once you plug into these networks. You’re not starting from scratch; you’re building on existing relationships. We’re already seeing how this can be extended beyond payments.
Beyond cash in, cash out
In 2024, I had a conversation with Winich Farms’ CEO, Riches Attai, just before the company announced its pre-Series A funding. What stood out to me was how they were using agents to aggregate farm produce. Farmers, many of whom don’t own smartphones, can locate agents via USSD and sell their produce without navigating digital platforms.
Another more recent example comes from M-KOPA, which uses agents extensively in its smartphone financing operations. These agents don’t just sell devices; they onboard customers, explain repayment structures, and essentially, translate a digital financial product into something people can understand and trust.
We’re seeing similar ideas emerge in other areas. Financial service providers are beginning to explore how agent networks can expand the adoption of pensions, insurance, and other products that have traditionally struggled to gain traction in the informal sector.
But I think we can push this even further.
If agents are, at their core, trusted intermediaries with physical reach, then their role shouldn’t be limited to finance. Take eCommerce, for example. Last-mile delivery remains a challenge in many parts of Nigeria due to poor addressing systems, wonky policies or practices, and logistical constraints. Local agents could serve as pickup and drop-off points, making it easier for people to access goods that might otherwise be out of reach.
Public services are another opportunity. Whether it’s voter registration, national identity enrolment, or even basic government services, agents could function as decentralised access points. We already see a version of this with cybercafés and exam registrations. The difference is that agent networks are far more extensive, structured, and now regulated.
There’s also a strong business case for this shift. Recent policy moves by the Central Bank of Nigeria, such as geotagging POS terminals and restricting agents to a single super agent, will affect how the ecosystem operates. These changes are set to tighten margins and force operators to rethink their models.
For agents themselves, many of whom are small business owners, this creates pressure. Some rely on transaction fees as supplementary income; others depend on it entirely. Expanding the range of services they offer is, therefore, a survival strategy.
So what does the future look like?
First, other service providers need to start seeing agents not just as payment endpoints but as distribution infrastructure. The value is not in the terminal but in the network. Fintechs understand this, and other tech-enabled businesses need to catch on quickly.
Second, products designed for the informal sector should be built with agents in mind from the start. If an agent cannot explain it, onboard a user, or support basic troubleshooting, adoption will likely suffer.
Third, there’s a need for more deliberate partnerships across industries. Agriculture, healthcare, insurance, logistics, and even government services can all plug into existing agent networks rather than build parallel systems.
Finally, there’s a trust layer that shouldn’t be underestimated. In many communities, especially rural communities, the agent is not just a service provider; they are a known face. That trust, built over years, is something technology alone cannot replicate at scale.
POS agents have served the financial services sector; now they must evolve into something more powerful — a decentralised, human infrastructure layer capable of delivering services to the last mile in ways that apps alone cannot.
