Business FAQs

General

Branding & Customization

Risk

Data Privacy & Protection

Banks

Merchants

Payment Platforms

Mobile Money Operators

Agent Networks

Telco Operators

Compliance (Nigeria)

How long does integration take?

It depends on how quickly your integration team can work, but we have several partners that have integrated and launched in under 14 days.

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What do I have to provide to use Migo?

All Partners:

A bank account where your renumeration can be settled

Distributors:

Integrate into our APIs so you can offer the services in your channels.
Data on your retail customers. We provide a simple upload tool that enables you to upload the data - securely.

Payers:

Integrate into our APIs for disbursements and payments.

Underwriters

If you wish to be an Underwriter on pre-qualified customers, upload a list of customers to Migo along with their data and the amounts (and terms, if you know them) that you are willing to lend to each customer.

Lenders:

A funded bank account (amount to be agreed with Migo) along with an autopay card so Migo can disburse and return your funds.

Banks/Mobile Wallet Owners Only:

Direct debit API on your account/wallet and an account-to-account transfer API to allow us to disburse and collect from customer accounts.

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Can I brand the products?

Yes. However, branding arrangements are dependent upon your company's service agreement with Migo.

There are three types of branding arrangements available to our partners:

Migo as a stand-alone brand in Migo owned channels.
Migo as a co-brand with your brand, in your owned channels.
Your brand only in your owned channels.

Can I also take risk on credit transactions?

Yes. Provided you are a Lender, you can also become an Underwriter and take the credit risk on transactions you fund. To become an Underwriter, you provide Migo with a list of pre-approved customers, along with the amounts and terms that you are willing to offer those customers. Alternatively, you can leverage Migo's pricing and decisioning APIs.

Can I use Migo to lend to my own customers?

Yes. Migo is happy to enable you to lend to your customers. You can choose to take on more roles (Distributor, Payer, Lender, and Underwriter) and Migo essentially becomes a credit engine for your business.

If you have pre-qualified customers with a credit limit, you can share your pre-qualified customer lists with Migo, including the amounts and the terms under which you are willing to lend to them, then Migo will adhere to those guidelines in its lending decisions and just manage the end-to-end transaction flow.

For customers that you have not pre-qualified, you can rely on Migo’s credit decisioning to decide what transactions to approve and for how much, but you take the credit risk and take the associated revenue.

If you are unsure about the risk, you can choose to relinquish the Underwriter role (thus, acting only as Distributor, Payer, and Lender) and Migo is happy to step in as the Underwriter and take the risk of lending to the customers, at its discretion.

What risk am I taking as a Lender?

It depends on whether or not you are also occupying the Underwriter role. If you are the Underwriter, you assume all credit risk on the transactions but also benefit from more revenue. Migo provides daily disbursement and payment reports so that you can keep track of customer payments. Migo also provides portfolio reports and financial reports to enable your credit risk team to underwrite the portfolio as a whole.

What does it mean to assume the chargeback risk?

If you are a Merchant in a Distributor role, or you are a Distributor that aggregates and serves merchants, you are responsible for handling chargeback risk.

What this means is that if a customer has an issue with a purchase, they are immediately refunded by Migo and the money is taken out of the Distributor’s remuneration T+1. If you disagree with a customer dispute, you are encouraged to file a dispute resolution with Migo.

Please Contact Us to find out more about our dispute resolution process.

How does Migo protect customer data?

Migo takes data privacy very seriously. We are fully compliant with GDPR and all local privacy regulation.

First, we separate PII (Personally Identifiable Information) such as name, address, state of origin, etc.) and non-PII data. We then ask partners to provide 6 months of non-PII data and a real-time or daily feed of behavioral data. The non-PII data is used to build anonymous risk profiles.

After the customer consents to full data access, you can then supply PII data to Migo through our API's. Alternatively, you can provide an API that Migo can reference in order to obtain PII data. It is at this point that we can match PII data to the anonymous profile to make a credit decision.

We do not disclose customer information under any circumstances other than those required by law.

Furthermore, if required, we can bring physical servers into your data center and process the data on-site so that your data never leaves your premises.

Does Migo share my customer data with anyone else?

Migo does not share your customer data with anyone, including the Lender. Even when the Lender books the transaction, they book the transaction in a GL (General Ledger) entry for the whole portfolio and receive only masked customer information so they do not have the ability to contact your customer directly. The customer data is only unmasked and provided to regulators or government agencies upon request, such as during an examination or audit.

How does Migo help me as a bank?

Migo helps you accelerate your digital strategy with credit. With very little effort, Migo helps you:

Offer overdraft facilities on current accounts.
Convert your retail customers’ debit cards to credit cards.
Offer additional value to your customers with instant loans and credit-based payments seamlessly integrated into all of your channels, including USSD.

How does the bank book the transaction?

As a Lender only, you book all loans as separate retail loans summed in a single GL entry in your core banking system. The Underwriter then acts as a collections agent, guaranteeing you a return on each loan by earning a spread. You receive daily reports on all loans but the customer details are kept by the Underwriter until requested during any regulatory audits or examinations. If you are both the Underwriter and the Lender you may book the loans however you choose.

How does Migo help me as a Merchant?

Migo offers you more value than traditional card or account-based debit transactions with the following benefits:

Higher transaction completion rates
Better merchant tools
Simple integration
No hardware required

What do I have to provide to accept Migo payments?

Contact our partnerships team for more information: Contact Us

How do I use Migo to drive my revenue

Encouraging your customers to use Migo increases your revenue by giving your customers more purchasing power through credit. Furthermore, because your account is funded directly without going through traditional payment card infrastructure, the success rates of transactions will increase. If you own a site or mobile app we encourage you to let your customers know, within the product flow and before they get to the checkout page, that Migo is available for them to use to complete their purchase.

What is the reason for the merchant service fee?

Migo provides your customers with increased buying power, and increases your transaction processing success rate (we have seen increases up to 87%). Therefore, you generate more revenue. If Migo increases your revenue by just 5% then Migo has paid for itself.

How does the Commercial Framework apply to me if I am integrating directly as a merchant?

If you are integrating into Migo API's directly as a merchant, you are entitled to the Distributor revenue. Thus, your Merchant Service Fee will be discounted by the Distributor Fee when you are settled. The result is you pay a lower fee per transaction. You would assume all chargeback risk.

How does Migo help me as a Payment Platform?

Migo enables you to add credit-based services to your platform without having to raise lending capital, put your balance sheet at risk, hire data scientists, buy licenses, or endure any of the challenges that come with building a sustainable credit business. As payment revenues shrink due to competition and/or regulation, credit is a naturally adjacent business to help drive your revenue, margin, and customer satisfaction.

How do I use Migo to drive my reveune?

Encouraging your customers to use Migo increases your revenue by giving your customers more purchasing power through credit. Furthermore, because your account is funded directly without going through traditional payment card infrastructure, the success rates of transactions will increase. We encourage you to let your customers know, within the product flow and before they get to the checkout page, that Migo is available for them to use to complete their purchase.

How do I use Migo to drive my revenue?

By enabling overdraft facilities and credit transactions, you can increase customer lifetime value with sticky customer benefits and increased transaction revenue.

How does Migo help me as an Agent Network?

Migo injects liquidity into your agent network.
Migo drives transaction volume and ticket size both as loans for your agents and as loans for your customers.
Increases agent satisfaction which reduces churn.
Increases customer satisfaction which increases brand loyalty.

How does Migo help me as a Telecommunications Operator?

Migo helps your financial services and agent network strategy. In a fully compliant (NCC and CBN) way, you can now enable loans and credit-driven payments to your customer base, whether using their bank accounts or their mobile wallets, assuming you have a PSB (payment service bank) license.

What do I have to provide to integrate?

Telecommunications operators integrations are more complex given the volume of data, sensitivity of the data, and the size of the distribution channels. Please Contact Us for our Telco Integration Guide.

How do I use Migo to drive my revenue?

Leverage dormant data sets in your business, such as CDRs, to generate alternative revenue streams. Furthermore, enabling credit will accelerate your strategic position and generate more revenue from your customers – both from the credit transactions, and from additional payment revenue due to increased wallet balances. Migo supports multiple credit products and multiple lenders in order to effectively serve your subscriber base. All of this can be done with very little effort or engineering investment from you.

Does the commercial framework apply to telecommunications operators?

Yes, but we have custom pricing for telecommunications operators. Please Contact Us for more details.

How do I implement revenue assurance?

Our revenue assurance team receives automated daily logs for all transactions on your network. You will also be settled on a mutually agreed upon schedule for all transactions on your network. This enables your internal team to perform reconciliation regularly.

Can Migo assist me in preparing regulatory approval applications for credit products?

Yes! We have experience helping operators prepare their regulatory documentation. Please Contact Us for more details.

Why should I choose Migo over other potential credit partners?

Migo has a proven platform and track record.
Migo is already integrated with multiple telecommunication operators.
Migo has experience navigating both telecommunication and banking regulators.
Migo knows how to handle massive amounts of data, how to score it, and how to secure it.
Migo can aggregate multiple lenders and multiple banks, so you only have to integrate with one partner (Migo), with one integration, and one contract.
We have proven with our own bank and our own money that our scoring and decisioning works.
We have the resources and the capital to handle your scale.

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Is Migo compliant with regulation?

Migo is fully compliant with all regulation including the following:

CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria)
NITDA (National Information Technology Development Agency)
NCC (Nigerian Communications Commission)

How does Migo handle AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and KYC (Know-your-customer) compliance?

During KYC, Migo automatically connects to the Thomson Reuters (Refinitiv) Screening Solution which assists in screening customers against a compiled sanctions list i.e. OFAC, UN, EU etc. This identifies customers who are PEPs, high risk, sanctioned entities or individuals.

Does Migo have a CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) license?

Migo is a technology platform and is not directly regulated. However, we are indirectly regulated by several agencies, including CBN, because we must ensure full compliance for the regulated partners on the platform. Furthermore, we test all of our technology under a microfinance bank owned by our parent company to ensure functionality and regulatory compliance.

Do I need a banking or lending license to become a Lender?

We advise partners to consult with local regulatory agencies on their ability to become a Lender.

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