In headline-grabbing fashion, MTN Nigeria Communications Plc (MTN Nigeria) has confirmed what many suspected: its fintech arm pulled in ₦131.6 billion (~US $91.6 million) in the first nine months of 2025. And yes—while that number sounds like a fintech victory lap, a closer look shows the engine behind it is still the old-school model: airtime lending (remember “XtraTime”?).
Fintech growth—or airtime “credit”?
The numbers tell a story worth squaring up to. MTN’s fintech revenue surged 72.5% year-on-year to ₦131.6 billion in the first nine months of 2025. Active mobile-money wallets stood at 2.9 million as at September. Customer deposits jumped roughly 80% by some accounts.
BUT—and it’s a big “but”—MTN acknowledges that a massive chunk of that fintech haul is still tethered to airtime lending. That means: users borrow airtime to keep their phone going; the telco embeds finance in connectivity, not just payments. That’s clever. But is it sustainable?
For contrast, MTN’s core fintech revenue (excluding airtime lending) was reported at only ₦6.8 billion (~US $4.73 million) in the same period. That’s far lower than the headline ₦131.6 billion. The slide from the investor call on October 31 pointed at that.
So: big impressive number? Yes. Transformative fintech-play? Not yet.
Why the airtime-lending boom?
Because MTN has volume. The company says its subscriber base hit 85.4 million as at 30 September 2025, up 11% year on year. Active data users reached 51.1 million (up ~12.8%). With that many phones, many Nigerians depend on borrowed airtime when cash or access is tight. MTN is tapping that.
Still, the telco itself acknowledges that it can’t bank on airtime lending forever. The competitive landscape is too fierce. The statement from CEO Karl Toriola:
“We still see substantial opportunities for growth and diversification… With disciplined execution, we are accelerating advanced services, expanding our ecosystem and deepening customer engagement.”
Translation: “Yes we made big money. But we aim to shift into richer fintech territory.”
The broader fintech battlefield
Here’s where perspective matters: Nigeria’s mobile-money landscape is shifting fast. By Q1 2025, transactions hit ₦20.71 trillion (~US $14.4 billion), according to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System. MTN’s fintech haul is a healthy chunk—but tiny compared to the overall market.
Meanwhile, challengers like OPay and PalmPay dominate daily mobile-payment counts: OPay claims ~10 million daily active users and ~100 million daily transactions in 2024; PalmPay claims ~15 million daily. Then there are telco-linked payment service banks (PSBs): MTN’s MoMo, SmartCash (Airtel), MoneyMaster (Glo) and the rest. They keep being the “also-rans” in the PSB race so far.
On its Q1 2026 earnings call, Airtel Africa CEO Sunil Taldar admitted the Nigerian fintech space is “well-developed compared to many other markets.”
How MTN is shifting gear
- Agent and merchant network expansion: Active agents grew 73.6% between Dec 2024 and Sept 2025; merchant network up 42.6%.
- Active MoMo wallets: Up to 2.9 million. Deposits rose ~146% year-on-year in one cited slide.
- Focus on “advanced services” and high-value customers instead of simply chasing volumes.
“As we onboard or deliver additional advanced services… more high-value customers actually come in to engage and interact with those services, thereby driving the additional momentum.” — Phrase Lubega, CEO, MoMo PSB
Physical presence and distribution quality: MTN calls it a “deliberate focus on optimising distribution quality and building a more sustainable fintech ecosystem for long-term growth.”
In short: shift from credit-based airtime lending to richer digital-finance services — payments, value chains, merchant networks. That’s the plan.
The hard truth
Despite the big numbers, the road ahead is long and full of challenge. PSBs were supposed to replicate the success of M-Pesa in Kenya after licence roll-outs beginning 2018. That hasn’t happened yet.
For instance, Airtel’s Nigeria MoMo business processed only about US $1.5 billion between April and Sept 2025 — just ~1.7% of Airtel Africa’s total mobile-money volume. The fintech revenue contribution from Nigeria to Airtel Africa’s earnings was only about US $4 million (0.64%) although Nigeria is one of the largest markets.
GSMA (global telco-industry body) thinks telcos can catch up—thanks to scale, tech and capital—but warns results won’t be overnight.
Bottom line
MTN Nigeria’s fintech business didn’t just whisper into life—it roared with ₦131.6 billion revenue in 9 M 2025. But the roar is built on airtime-lending—the “easy money” of telco-finance. Now the company says it’s shifting gears into more sustainable fintech: payments, value chains, high-value clients, deeper distribution.
Will it succeed? The turf is fierce, and challengers have a head-start. MTN sits in a strong position thanks to its footprint—but the move from “airtime credit” to “digital-financial-services powerhouse” won’t play itself.
Expect the next chapters to be about execution: how well MTN can convert wallets into habitual usage, agents into merchants, and airtime loans into full-fledged financial habits. For now, the numbers are bold—but the sustainability question remains loud.