List of CBN approved loan apps in Nigeria 2024
In an effort to mitigate the activities of loan sharks that prey on desperate Nigerians who need emergency cash, this article lists CBN approved loan apps that do not harass or use other unethical methods to recover their loans from customers.
Online loan apps give short-term loans to customers – usually, salary earners who can pay them back at the end of the month or as soon as they receive their next paycheck. Online loans are not meant to fund a business or to fund one’s lifestyle, they are short-term loans meant for only emergency use as they often have very high interest rates and short repayment period.
A lot of Nigerians take these short-term loans at unsustainable interest rates to fund their businesses. And worst still, they take the loan from unregistered and unregulated online loan apps that often resort to unethical practices when it is time to recover their loans.
To this end, here is a list of CBN-licensed loan apps that give loans with reasonable interests and do not use unethical methods to harass their customers:
Commercial bank apps
All the commercial banks in Nigeria have a personal loan product that can be accessed via their mobile apps. For example, GTBank’s rapid loan assures both salaried and self-employed clients up to N500,000 to N5 million at a monthly interest rate of 1.5%. Salaried customers can borrow anywhere between N10,000 and N5 million, while self-employed customers can borrow anywhere between N10,000 and N500,000. Customers in both groups can return their loans in 6 to 12 months. There are no hidden fees here.
First City Monument Bank (FCMB) also offers instant loan of up to N200,000 without any collateral or paperwork required via its FastCash loan product.
Carbon Loan App
Carbon app is a CBN registered microfinance bank with registration number RC 1642222. The bank has been around for almost 10 years now and gives unsecured loans of upto #1,000,000 with a minimum tenor of 1 month. The digital bank also offers free access to credit reports.
Features
- Apply from the app 24/7, get funded in minutes
- Access up-to ₦1,000,000
- No collateral. No guarantors. No paperwork
- Get cashback on interest paid once you repay on time
Renmoney
Renmoney is a financial service company that provides services including loans, savings and a fixed deposit account. They grant both personal and micro-business loans ranging from N50,000 to N6 million.
Renmoney has a microfinance bank license from the CBN and deposits with them are insured by the NDIC as a registered and regulated financial service provider.
Branch loan app
Branch loan app is an online financial service provider with operations in Nigeria, Kenya, Mexico, India, and Tanzania.
The online loan app offers instant loans that help people achieve their business and personal needs and has disbursed over 9billion naira to 1.2 million Nigerians since it was launched in the country in 2015.
Branch loans are designed as a revolving loan, which means customers get a higher loan amount and tenor every time they repay their previous loans. Their loans range from between ₦1,000 to ₦200,000 with a repayment period of 4 to 40 weeks.
Branch uses customer BVN records to determine their credit score and weed-out potential loan defaulters.
Quickteller Loan
Quickteller is a payment service app that allows customers to make online transactions like sending and receiving money, buy airtime, bills payment, etc.
The app was developed by digital payments company, Interswitch as a payment solution for merchants across Africa.
Quickteller offers between 3%-15% interest rates over a repayment period of between 10 days to 3 months. The interest rate of the loan depends on the lender’s evaluation of the applicant’s credit score record.
FairMoney loan app
FairMoney is an online loan app that offers collateral-free loans to Nigerians with minimal documentation.
Instant loan of between ₦1,500 to ₦500,000 is disbursed into the applicant’s account with monthly interest about 10%-30% depending on the loan amount and tenor selected.
Kuda Bank
Kuda bank is an online, digital online bank that provides banking services via its app in Nigeria.
Kuda bank offers overdrafts and short-term loans to its regular users who use the app to save, make bill payments and perform other transactions. Kuda will charge you interest on a daily basis at the rate of 0.3% of the Overdraft Facility during the Tenor. This interest will, however, only be applicable and begin to accrue if you do not pay back the Overdraft Facility to Kuda by midnight on the Disbursement Date.
See the list of the most trusted loan apps in Nigeria for 2024. These are the loan apps with the highest number of user downloads and positive feedback on Playstore. User reviews and experiences of other users are a good way to determine which loan apps offer the best services
Advantages of taking loans from CBN-licenced and regulated loan apps
Taking loans from CBN-regulated loan apps may seem like too much work given the availability of online loan apps that don’t ask much questions. But the advantages of these apps is unparalleled.
- Peace of mind: loan sharks rely on fear to recover the loans they give out. Should you default on your loan, most of them will send derogatory messages to your contacts and family. But with licensed loan apps, you get the peace of mind that something like that won’t happen even if you default.
- Build better credit score: every time you take and repay a loan, the transaction is recorded in your credit score which can give you higher loan amount in the future if you have good credit score. Regulated loan apps keep a credit report unlike unregulated ones who don’t.
- Better interest rate: the interest rates you pay on regulated loans is much lower compared to what other loan sharks will charge you. You also get a longer repayment period starting from 30 days compared to the 7 days you get on most loan sharks.