Nine fintech companies have frozen 105 accounts allegedly involved in unauthorised foreign exchange dealings, money laundering, and terrorism financing.
This follows an application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to a Federal High Court in Abuja. The court granted an interim order on April 24, 2024, to freeze the accounts for 90 days while investigations continue.
The affected fintechs and the number of accounts include Fairmoney Microfinance Bank (6), VFD (2), Kuda Microfinance Bank Ltd (27), Opay Digital Services (43), Carbon MTB (7), MoMo Payment Service Bank (1), Pagatech (8), PalmPay Ltd (5), and Moniepoint (6).
These frozen accounts are part of a larger investigation by the EFCC into 1,146 bank accounts suspected of forex racketeering. The EFCC believes that the owners of some of these accounts exploited cryptocurrency platforms to manipulate the naira’s value against the dollar.
A couple of weeks ago, the EFCC Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, told journalists that about 300 accounts had been frozen because of their connection to illegal trading on a peer-to-peer platform. He explained that over $15 billion passed through a particular (unnamed) forex platform in the last year, outside financial regulations.