Nigeria: formal finance now reaches 73% of adults, but barely one in ten borrows

The former central bank governor put the problem in a single sentence. “Opening an account, moving money, is not the same as earning money,” said Muhammadu Sanusi II, now Emir of Kano, at the Abuja launch of the ninth Access to Financial Services in Nigeria survey, A2F 2026, run by the non-profit EFInA. The numbers in the report, released in mid-September and picked up since by the whole of Nigeria’s business press, bear him out.

On access, the progress is clear. 73% of adults now use at least one formal financial service, up from 64% in 2023 and 56% in 2020. That puts the country past the 70% target in its National Financial Inclusion Strategy. Counting savings groups and other informal channels, 79% of adults, or 94.2 million people, are in the system. Only 21% are excluded, down from 26% three years earlier.

Credit is another story. About 11.9 million adults, 10% of the total, use a formal loan. That is nearly double the 2023 figure (5% to 6%, depending on the source), but still a fraction of the accounts opened. The survey was carried out between April and June 2026 among 18,679 adults across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Payments did the heavy lifting

What moved the numbers was payments. 64% of adults, about 77 million people, use a digital financial service, up from 45% in 2023 and 34% in 2020. Mobile money use more than tripled, from 12% to 38% of adults, according to figures cited by The Sun. Access points multiplied too, through networks of agents and “super agents”, the shopkeepers who open accounts and handle withdrawals on behalf of banks and fintechs. Formal savings also rose, from 38% to 53%.

The gains are very unevenly spread. Formal inclusion stands at 85% in towns and 58% in rural areas, a gap that widened from 24 to 27 points since 2023. The South West is close to saturation at 96.4%. In the North West, 72.2% of men are formally included, against 51.8% of women. Among the poorest 20% of adults, 53% remain excluded; among the richest 20%, just 1%.

An account is not a credit file

Why hasn’t lending followed? First, because a payment history is not enough for a lender. Before disbursing, a bank or fintech wants to verify income, assess repayment capacity and check existing debts. But a large share of Nigerians earn their living in the informal economy, paid in cash and irregularly: 92% of agricultural workers are still paid in cash, according to the survey. Their accounts show money passing through, not a salary coming in.

Then there is the price. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) policy rate sat at 26.5% from February to September; the Monetary Policy Committee only cut it to 23% on September 22, with inflation down to 15.39% in August. When money costs that much for a bank, it costs far more for the small trader who borrows it. The CBN’s 2025 annual report shows the effect: outstanding consumer credit fell 19.89% to ₦3.78 trillion, from ₦4.72 trillion a year earlier. It was the first decline since 2019, and the central bank itself blames the high-rate environment. The drop came from personal loans, which fell to ₦1.85 trillion.

Credit to the private sector amounts to just 13.1% of GDP, well below Kenya or South Africa, according to a report by lender Credit Direct published in June. Demand is there, though: 16% of adults borrow informally and 10% from family and friends, according to EFInA data reported by TechCabal on October 19.

Borrowing to cope, not to invest

The most worrying finding concerns what the credit is used for. In 2023, 40.2% of formal borrowing went to productive activity and 31.7% to coping with day-to-day expenses. By 2026 the balance had flipped: 40.8% of loans went to coping, 34.3% to production. And 45.8% of formal credit users say they have some or serious difficulty repaying.

The borrower profile has shifted as well. Formal credit is growing among informal workers (from 5% to 15%), business owners (from 4% to 10%) and 18 to 35-year-olds (from 4% to 10%), the very groups targeted by digital lenders and fintechs that lend against customers’ cash flows rather than a payslip (the survey does not say what share of these loans comes from mobile apps). Among formal-sector employees, by contrast, it fell from 29% to 23%. In other words, lending is gaining ground where it costs the most and where incomes are the most fragile.

Financial fragility goes well beyond credit. Only 10.6% of formally included adults could raise ₦156,000 within seven days without difficulty, compared with 3.7% of everyone else. Foyinsolami Akinjayeju, EFInA’s chief executive, put it bluntly at the launch: “three out of four Nigerians are not financially healthy.” Insurance reaches only 5% of adults, pensions 9.1%.

« The policy challenge before us is therefore no longer simply to open accounts or expand access points. »

Aisha Isa-Olatinwo, Director of Consumer Protection and Financial Inclusion at the CBN, speaking on behalf of Governor Olayemi Cardoso (quoted by NAN)

The market fintechs are chasing

For the industry, the gap between accounts and loans is above all an opportunity. Moniepoint, one of the country’s biggest fintechs, used the survey launch to make the case for cash-flow lending: lending to a trader based on what goes through their payment terminal rather than on collateral they don’t have. According to the company, 62% of women surveyed in its own impact study got their first formal business loan through it. The national strategy targets 40% of adults with access to formal credit, according to figures presented at the launch and reported by The Will. The country is a quarter of the way there.

The risk is a fast-forward version of what the data already shows: quick, expensive loans taken out to make ends meet by borrowers with unstable incomes. September’s rate cut could ease the squeeze, provided banks pass it on. But the point made by Agnes Martins, EFInA’s board chair, applies to credit more than anything else: “Access is only the beginning of the journey. It is not the destination.” The next survey, due in three years if the usual schedule holds, will show whether Nigeria has turned its 87.2 million formally included adults into borrowers whose loans help businesses grow.