Poor credit data could stall FG loan schemes, E-doc CEO warns

Tunde Ogundipe, Chief Executive Officer of E-doc Online, has warned that Nigeria's push to expand consumer credit will fail to hit its targets unless lenders can access reliable and verifiable credit data. He spoke to journalists and creators at the Google office in Lagos.

Ogundipe said government-backed lending schemes may provide substantial funding, but loan officers still cannot approve loans without enough information about applicants' financial behaviour.

Access to credit starts with credit data

“Everyone is talking about credit access, and the government deserves credit for moving. But access to credit starts with access to credit data,” he said.

“You can put billions behind lending schemes, and the loan officer still has to answer one question: who is this person and can they pay? If the data to answer that is locked away or does not exist, the scheme stalls at the counter. That is the problem we have to fix as a country,” he added.

Ogundipe pointed to millions of Nigerians whose financial activities do not fit conventional lending models. According to EFInA's most recent Access to Finance survey, only about 6% of Nigerian adults used credit from a regulated financial institution in the past year, while about 26% of adults remain financially excluded.

That leaves a large population with regular income and transaction histories but no conventional credit records that lenders can use to assess loan applications.

Government's CrediCorp push

Ogundipe's comments come as the Federal Government steps up efforts to expand consumer lending through the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CrediCorp). CrediCorp was established in April 2024 with a mandate to expand consumer credit to half of Nigeria's working population by 2030.

The Corporation recently disclosed that it had facilitated N47.2 billion to 301,928 Nigerians as of July 31, 2026. It has also entered into a risk sharing arrangement with the National Credit Guarantee Company to encourage lenders to extend more credit.

According to CrediCorp, the agreement is designed to reduce lending risks for financial institutions by providing partial credit guarantees, while unlocking more wholesale funding for consumer lending through its network of Participating Financial Institutions.

But Ogundipe said the availability of funding alone will not resolve the underlying problem if financial institutions cannot reliably determine the creditworthiness of potential borrowers.

Open banking could unlock alternative data

Ogundipe said open banking infrastructure could help by allowing customers to securely share their financial information with authorised third parties. E-doc Online, founded in 2021, provides open banking and financial data infrastructure that connects, with customer consent, to bank accounts and transaction histories.

Its APIs convert transaction data into automated identity verification, risk assessment and credit decisioning tools for banks, lenders and fintech companies. This allows lenders to assess customers based on actual financial behaviour, including deposits, payments and transaction patterns, rather than relying on payslips or collateral alone.

Nigeria has a regulatory framework for open banking. The Central Bank of Nigeria issued operational guidelines on 7 March 2023, making Nigeria the first African country to establish an open banking regime. The CBN originally targeted a full nationwide commercial launch for August 2025, but deferred the date to ensure robust data protection, fully automated user consent controls, and strict cybersecurity.

Ogundipe said expansion of open banking depends on trust between financial institutions, technology companies and consumers. He said E-doc Online's strategy is to grow through partnerships while ensuring customers remain in control of the financial information they choose to share.

“We are asking banks to open their doors and customers to share their history. You earn that one integration at a time. There is no shortcut, and there should not be,” he said.

For Nigerian consumers and businesses, the warning means the government's credit expansion plans will only deliver if the data bottleneck is fixed. Without it, billions in lending schemes could sit idle at the counter while millions of creditworthy Nigerians stay locked out.