First City Monument Bank is recasting payment infrastructure as a growth lever for Nigerian businesses, not merely a banking utility, as the lender deepens its push into digital collections, point-of-sale expansion and data-driven lending.
Oladipo Alabede, FCMB’s Divisional Head of Payments and Merchant Solutions, said the bank’s aim is to strip friction from business payments so companies can focus on expansion rather than administration. The strategy centres on FCMB Collect, a digital collections platform that assigns unique virtual accounts to customers, letting merchants match incoming payments instantly rather than reconciling transactions manually. The platform also supports invoicing, automated payment reminders and real-time cash-flow analytics, features aimed squarely at the reconciliation and visibility gaps that have long constrained Nigerian SMEs.
FCMB has paired this with a broader omnichannel push, expanding its POS network and payment gateway to support cards, transfers, QR payments and contactless transactions in one ecosystem. A partnership with Mastercard and Netplus has added Tap on Phone technology, turning Android devices into POS terminals without dedicated hardware, a move that lowers the cost of entry for micro and small merchants.
The bank is also mining transaction data to underwrite working-capital loans based on actual cash-flow performance rather than collateral alone. That approach fed into more than ₦350 billion in loans disbursed through digital channels in 2024, comprising over 1.6 million retail loans worth ₦148.8 billion and more than 18,000 SME loans totalling ₦208.2 billion. The scale of that lending helped FCMB secure the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria’s Best SME-Focused Bank award for 2025, on the back of a 24% share of the industry’s ₦1.8 trillion SME disbursement in 2024.
The digital push is increasingly visible in FCMB Group’s numbers. Digital revenue rose 60% year-on-year to ₦73.6 billion in the six months to June 2025, from ₦46 billion a year earlier, contributing 13.9% of total earnings. Group profit before tax climbed 23% to ₦79.3 billion over the same period, while gross revenue rose 41.3% to ₦529.2 billion and total assets reached ₦7.54 trillion.
Group Chief Executive Ladi Balogun said the bank expects continued earnings growth from digital transformation, expansion of non-banking businesses and wider adoption of its payment and collection tools. With competition intensifying across Nigerian banking and fintech, FCMB is wagering that integrated payment infrastructure will remain central to winning and retaining SME customers.
