United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, one of Nigeria’s biggest banking groups, is making a comeback in Nigeria’s booming Point of Sales (PoS) payment market by rolling out 46,000 upgraded terminals to win back small businesses and retail merchants increasingly served by fintechs.
Once a major player in the country’s PoS market, UBA is now racing to reassert itself amid rising competition from fintechs like Moniepoint, OPay, and PalmPay. The group has deployed over 6,000 Redpay PoS terminals since January 2025, with another 40,000 expected in the coming months.
In 2024, Nigeria’s PoS market processed ₦79.5 trillion ($49.7 billion) in transactions, up from ₦2.3 trillion ($1.44 billion) in 2018, according to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS). That 3,356.5% surge has largely been driven by fintechs, who built extensive agent networks and won merchants over with instant settlements, faster devices, and flexible onboarding.
However, with Redpay, UBA has engineered a catch-up, combining the speed of fintechs with the trust and reliability of a bank. For many merchants, that hybrid may be a better long-term value proposition.
“Merchants commend the terminals’ ease of use, transaction speed, 100% success rate for transfers, and enhanced visibility,” Olukayode Olubiyi, UBA’s head of digital banking, said in an email to an online publication recently. “They added that flexibility and reliability have significantly improved their daily operations.”
According to UBA, the new Redpay terminals have processed over ₦25 billion ($15.6 million) in transaction value since January, with adoption especially strong among SMEs in urban and peri-urban areas.
“Although retail merchants such as supermarkets and pharmacies are also benefiting from improved transaction reliability and uptime,” Olubiyi said.
UBA’s PoS rollout comes at a time when the gap between traditional banks and fintechs is widening in customer satisfaction. A 2024 KPMG report ranked fintechs ahead of banks across various stages of the customer journey, especially in transaction speed, platform reliability, and feature variety. UBA is betting that a more integrated solution—one that pairs payments with banking services—can bridge that gap.
“Redpay combines a user-friendly interface with backend inventory and store management, all tied into UBA’s wider retail ecosystem,” said Onyebuchi Akosa, the group’s chief information officer. “We also offer the trust, reach, and regulatory stability that many fintechs can’t replicate.”
Security is another key focus. With fraud on the rise across PoS platforms, UBA says its new devices are Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) compliant and equipped with end-to-end encryption, tokenisation, secure PIN entry, and remote terminal management.
The upgraded terminals also come bundled with value-added features: agency banking via the bank’s revamped MONI App, real-time fund transfers, BVN/NIN-based account opening, airtime and bill payments, and instant settlements into digital wallets.
“Merchants also get access to analytics dashboards for better business visibility and decision-making,” Olubiyi said.
Cover Pix: L-R: Gbolabo Cole; head, PoS services and web payments, UBA, Alero Ladipo, group head, marketing and corporate Communications, UBA, Shamsideen Fashola, group head, retail and digital banking and Olukayode Olubiyi, head, digital banking during the unveiling of UBA’s improved Point of Sale (PoS) terminal and the UBA MONI App at the banks’ corporate head office, in Marina, in April 2025.
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