The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) is piloting phone approvals for institutional fees to reduce duplicate payments when students pay a school before learning that the loan agency has already sent funds.
At an Oct. 28 briefing, NELFUND Managing Director Akintunde Sawyerr said students would receive a notice when approved institutional charges were ready and could authorize payment through a phone app, BusinessDay and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) reported. The outlets said each token would direct funds to its assigned institution and could not be used at another school or to send money to a student’s personal account.
“We’re not giving the students money, but we’re giving them power,” Sawyerr said, as quoted by BusinessDay and ICIR.
The reports described a delay between a school receiving NELFUND funds and the student learning that the fees had been paid. A student who pays to meet a deadline may then need to request a refund, the outlets reported. The authorization step is intended to give students control over when the payment starts; if the process works as described, schools may have fewer duplicate-payment refunds to handle.
BusinessDay and ICIR reported that officials cited nearly 400,000 applications at the briefing. Vanguard separately reported that NELFUND Executive Director Mustapha Iyal described the pilot as covering about 400,000 students, with transactions involving nearly 5,000 students daily and about 20,000 students added between the prior week and the briefing week. The reports do not clarify whether the application count and pilot coverage refer to the same students.
NELFUND’s FAQ says approved institutional charges go directly to schools, while approved upkeep payments are made to students monthly. The FAQ also says the loans carry no interest. EconoTimes previously reported that students may decline the program and must repay loans they take under its voluntary and repayable terms.
