…As EMTL jumps 57% in 12 months
The federal government has made N79.93 billion from the Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) since it was implemented by fintech companies like Opay, Palmpay, and Moniepoint in December 2024.
According to data from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), EMTL revenue available for sharing between January and March 2025 totalled N79.93 billion, a 56.80 percent year-on-year increase from the N50.97 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2024.
Of this amount, fintech companies contributed approximately N29 billion. In 2024, the government asked fintech companies to comply with EMTL in alignment with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) regulations, tapping into a sector that processed transactions worth N46.91 trillion in 2023 and N79.55 trillion in 2024.
While the levy was initially meant to start in September 2024, implementation commenced in December. The EMTL, introduced in the Finance Act 2020 as an amendment to the Stamp Duty Act, imposes a N50 charge on electronic receipts or transfers of N10,000 and above made through banks and other financial institutions.
It was meant to target the boom of electronic payments in the country, which has surged since the COVID-19 pandemic and crossed a record high of N1 quadrillion in 2024. It was to serve as an additional source of revenue to the government in the face of dwindling oil receipts. Revenue from EMTL is distributed across the three tiers of government.
Before now, this levy was restricted to formal financial institutions. But as banks struggled to cope with rising digital demand, fintech firms, also called neobanks, have stepped in and grown in popularity. Transaction values through these mobile money platforms have increased by 2,507.94 percent since 2020.
“Payment methods have become easier, faster, and better, and people are using them for everyday things,” said Adedeji Olowe, founder of Lendsqr.
“Most Nigerians have an account with a neobank. When the banks are down, those with money in these accounts are usually unaffected,” added Bolaji Akinboro, chairman of Voriancorelli and co-founder of Cellulant.
Aware of this, the government widened its tax net to include fintechs and is now earning more from EMTL. It forecast a 31.35 percent increase in yearly collections because of this move. According to its 2025 – 2027 Medium Term Fiscal Framework, the federal government expects EMTL revenue to hit N230 billion in 2025, a 31.35 percent increase from the N175 billion target for 2024.
However, this push for more revenue may come at a cost to users. Aside from speed and reliability, neobanks promised customers transfers at low to non-existent costs. For example, OPay charged only N10 after the third transfer in a day on third-party transfers.
According to GSMA, the global body for telecommunication firms, additional taxes can potentially threaten the success of e-payments. In a study, the body revealed that additional taxes on mobile money transactions in Uganda caused overall industry transaction values to drop 24 percent in 2018, and in 2019, new mobile money taxes forced both values and volumes to fall in the Republic of Congo. (BusinessDay)
