Eyowo
“Can a phone-number-as-account-number digital bank own financial inclusion for the Nigerian mass market?”
Founded2017
HQLagos, Nigeria
IndustryFintech / Neobank
The story
Eyowo started in 2017 as a phone-number-based money disbursement rail for unbanked Nigerians (notably powering the federal TraderMoni loan scheme), then formally launched as a digital bank in 2019 with retail banking POS tooling. The CBN revoked its MFB license in May 2023 — a near-existential event — but the license was reinstated in stages through 2024, allowing Eyowo to resume positioning itself as a self-licensed Nigerian digital bank covering payments, savings, cards, and lending.
Product timeline
2017
Eyowo began operations focused on cardless money access for unbanked Nigerians; used for TraderMoni federal loan disbursement.· banking
2019
Launched as a full digital bank with retail banking POS tool for businesses.· banking
2023
Microfinance bank license revoked by CBN along with 46 other MFBs in May; operations briefly shut down.· pivot
2024
MFB license reinstated by CBN with approval in principle (March); full and final license restored in June.· banking
Regulated entities
2
regulatory licences held by Eyowo
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
4 layers disclosed in Eyowo’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Eyowo Payments (self-operated)
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Sponsor bank
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
5 more providers across 3 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.