CAC registers Opay financial services, 300,000 business agents

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has begun the registration process of Opay financial services together with its 300,000 agents and Marchant across the country.

Speaking in Abuja on Tuesday while hosting the Management of Opay, the Registrar General of CAC, Isha Hussaini Magaji SAN said the registration of the financial businesses in Nigeria is to encourage inclusion for economic growth.

Magaji explained that in line with Company and Allied Matters Act, every business operating in the country has to be registered with the Commission.

“Last week, we had to accommodate over 2 million small businesses, and today we are here to accommodate Opay services and affiliated businesses with the aim of encouraging business start-up in Nigeria.”

The Registrar used the opportunity to call on content creators and Social Media Influencers to do the needful and register their businesses.

He said that ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

“It is stated in the company and Allied Matters of 2020 that for any business to take place in Nigeria if you are doing a business, whether with your name or with another name or for any transaction that you are doing that is bringing in money, you must register.

“If you are a content creator on the internet, you have followership and you are gaining from it, you must register, that’s the provision of the law. And we are all out to enforce the provision of the law.”

Magaji explained that the law has penalised businesses every day.

“If you are to go now and apply our law strictly, these names should be penalized from the day they started the business without our registration day by day. That’s what the law requires.

“But we decided in line with the president’s renewed hope agenda to provide jobs, to provide access to wealth, we decided to regularize and accommodate it into the system,” he stated.

On his part, the Executive Director of Opay, Dr Maxwell Loko commended CAC for accommodating them with the over 300, 000 business, though they came late for registration.

“For any business to be registered, you must do what is required by the law. But you know, most of these people we are trying to capture now are businesses that have been operating as individual roadside businesses”.

He assured that Opay and the over 300,000 agents will do the needful to be fully registered.