Financial Inclusion: Nigeria’s cashless boom leaves rural women, cross-border traders behind

“Customer, come now, it has been a while. I have fresh yam ooo,” Fatimah Abu shouted in pidgin English as she saw a car about to park near her roadside stand.

Fatimah sells farm produce, including yams, okra, tomatoes, onions, chilli and potatoes. She is one of about a dozen Fulani women who sell farm produce along the roadside at Fruit Market in Lugbe, a suburb about 12 kilometres from Abuja city centre.

As soon as the customer began bargaining with her, a young woman carrying a Point-of-Sale (POS) machine and wearing a black pouch around her neck appeared.

“You wan withdraw money?” she asked the customer in pidgin English.

For those familiar with the market, the routine is hardly surprising. Fatimah and several other women in the area do not accept bank transfers or use POS machines. For them, cash remains king.

Fatimah and the other women operate a makeshift farm-produce market that serves residents and workers around Lugbe who want to avoid the hassle of going to the main market.

The routine is simple: motorists park by the roadside, buy what they need and leave.

Although digital payments are becoming increasingly common around them, many of the women have yet to embrace the mode of payment.

“I don’t take transfers. I don’t have a bank account. Let me call you the POS girl,” Fatimah told her customer.

The POS operator charges between ₦100 and ₦200 for every ₦5,000 withdrawal. It is a common practice in Nigeria.

A quick survey of the market showed that most sellers accept digital payments, highlighting the divide between traders who have embraced Nigeria’s rapidly expanding digital payment ecosystem and those who still rely almost entirely on cash.

Nigeria’s digital payment boom

Nigeria has made significant progress in digital payments over the past decade.

According to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), electronic payment transactions in Nigeria reached approximately ₦1.07 quadrillion in 2024, compared with about ₦600 trillion in 2023. The figure rose to ₦1.7 quadrillion in 2025.

The growth of fintech companies and the cash shortage that followed the 2023 naira redesign have contributed to the rapid adoption of digital payments in Nigeria.

Fintech companies have also made opening bank accounts easier, with some allowing customers to use their phone numbers as account numbers. Several fintech companies also provide POS services to merchants, helping to expand access to electronic payments.

But despite the rapid growth of digital payments, some Nigerians remain outside the system.

Interviews with traders in Abuja showed that concerns about fraud, poor mobile network coverage, limited access to banking services and the nature of cross-border trade continue to influence the preference for cash.

Fear of fake transfers

For Fatimah, concerns about fraudulent transfers are one reason she prefers cash.

“Sometimes we hear about fake transfers and others from people, and that scares me. Aside from that, we need money every day in my village. Sometimes I go to farms to buy tomatoes; they don’t want transfers, they want cash,” she said in Fulfulde, which was translated into English.

The concerns are not entirely unfounded

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that Nigerians lost ₦52.26 billion to fraud in 2024, although the figure fell to ₦25.85 billion in 2025.

Mercy Ihon, a bread seller at the Lugbe market, said some traders who previously had no bank accounts have embraced fintech platforms.

“Even people who do not have bank accounts have opened OPay,” she said.

However, she said some Fulani women have remained outside the digital payment system, partly due to limited access to mobile networks.

“Those Fulani women who do not take transfers do not have bank accounts. Unfortunately, because they live in remote areas without mobile networks, they appear to be shunning digital payments,” she said.

Haruna Akilu, a garden-egg seller, said cash is becoming increasingly scarce in the market as more customers prefer transfers or card payments.

“Most people do not take cash around anymore,” he said, dipping his hand into his pocket and bringing out a worn-out ₦500 note. “This is the only cash I’ve made today,” he added.

Women and financial exclusion

Experts say the limited adoption of digital payments among some women also reflects the wider gender gap in financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa.

The World Bank said the gender gap in formal account ownership across sub-Saharan Africa stood at 12 percentage points in 2024, with 37 per cent of women holding an account compared with 48 per cent of men.

For many women in rural communities, accessing banking services can also be difficult.

A lack of nearby channels for resolving banking complaints means customers may have to travel long distances to visit a bank branch. This is particularly challenging in rural communities, including parts of northern Nigeria.

Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, including the need for identification documents and photographs, can also discourage people without formal documentation from opening accounts.

PREMIUM TIMES visited other markets in Abuja, including Gosa, Dei Dei and Soka, to examine the adoption of digital payments among traders.

While many traders had embraced transfers and POS payments, some said the nature of their businesses made cash more convenient.

Sabine Mensah, deputy CEO of the AfricaNenda Foundation, said governments must create an inclusive environment by providing incentives. She cited India as an example, where the government removed transaction costs and provided access to credit to incentivise merchants to adopt digital payments.

“India comes to mind. They have been able to onboard millions and millions of people into UPI. One of the things the government did was to take out the cost of transactions. Government covers [it]. They also created an all-inclusive strategy. Merchants would have access to credit if they use digital payments. We know that in our part of the world,” she said.

Speaking on fraud prevention, Mensah said there had been significant improvements in payment systems to address fraud. She noted the use of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) and automated live-tracking systems by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) to combat fraud.

“NIBSS has been able to automate fraud tracking. They have a dashboard. This automated detection [system] identifies unfamiliar transactions and flags them. In some systems, they have a 60-second delay to correct mistakes,” she said.

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Cross-border trade keeps cash alive

At Dei Dei Market, about 30 kilometres from Abuja city centre, Muhammed Awwal, a wholesale tomato seller, said cross-border trade was one reason some traders continue to prefer cash.

He said some traders source their products from neighbouring countries, including Niger, Cameroon and the Benin Republic, making cash easier to use for transactions and currency conversion.

“We buy directly from farmers. They don’t want to hear about bank transfers or anything. Sometimes, some of the farmers we deal with are outside Nigeria in places like Cameroon or Niger. It is easier to change cash to CFA than making a transfer,” he said.

He explained that cash also makes it easier for traders who need foreign currency for transactions outside Nigeria.

“Sometimes we use the money to buy other items when going back to Niger, so cash is easy to deal with,” he said.

Abubakar Suleiman, a cattle seller at the Dei Dei Market, expressed a similar view.

According to him, the CFA franc is more convenient for some of his transactions, particularly when dealing with traders and suppliers across the border.

The preference for cash among some traders points to a broader challenge facing digital financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa: while instant payment systems have expanded rapidly, businesses that operate across borders still face difficulties making seamless digital payments.

For traders like Fatimah, therefore, Nigeria’s cashless revolution is yet to fully reach the roadside markets where cash remains the most trusted means of payment.