The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has begun testing token payments to prevent students from paying school fees already settled through their loans.
Managing Director Akintunde Sawyerr described the arrangement at a press briefing on Wednesday, 28 October, according to Punch. It would allow beneficiaries to authorise payments to their institutions using their phones.
The fund would notify a student when approved fees were available. The student could then trigger a transfer through a token assigned to the relevant institution. The money would go to the school, rather than becoming cash available in the student’s bank account.
Sawyerr said the change followed cases in which beneficiaries paid fees without knowing that NELFUND had already transferred funds to their institutions. Delayed notification left schools holding two payments and students seeking refunds.
He described those duplicated transactions as errors, rather than evidence that the students had acted dishonestly. The proposed payment authorisation would put the student directly into the transaction before money moved to the institution.
Executive Director of Operations Mustapha Iyal also confirmed that testing had started. Politics Nigeria reported his explanation that each token would be linked to an institution and would not operate as a personal or mobile-money wallet.
“We’re not giving the students money, but we’re giving them power,” Sawyerr said, as quoted by Punch.
The restrictions would prevent a beneficiary from moving approved institutional fees into a personal account or paying a different school. Officials did not announce a date for full implementation or identify the institutions participating in the initial phase.
The token proposal predates Wednesday’s briefing. In July, Sawyerr outlined a phone-based arrangement in which students would activate payments at their institutions’ bursaries. Economic Confidential reported that the planned change was intended to address duplicated tuition payments.
That earlier announcement also distinguished institutional fees from upkeep support. Students would continue receiving upkeep stipends directly, while the token mechanism would apply to payments for their education. Wednesday’s reported pilot marks a further stage in developing that arrangement.
NELFUND describes its wider programme as interest-free financing intended to reduce barriers to higher education for eligible Nigerian students. Its published loan terms distinguish the amount approved for institutional fees from any amount approved for upkeep.
The terms also make clear that payments remain loans. A beneficiary accepts personal responsibility for money paid to an educational institution in their name and for upkeep received, whether or not they graduate.
The fund’s website requires borrowers to provide accurate information and allows them to repay part or all of a loan before repayment falls due. It also requires employed borrowers to update their employer details on the student-loan portal.
For self-employed graduates, the published terms require business information to be updated within 60 days of becoming self-employed. These obligations concern the underlying loan, separate from the method used to authorise institutional payments.
The official website directs applications to its student-loan portal and provides a separate support channel for enquiries. The reported pilot has not established that the new payment method is available at every participating institution.
Image: Eukoha, archive photograph of the University of Ibadan gate. Source, CC BY-SA 4.0. Commons records 2 January 2010. Resized campus illustration, not the October 2026 briefing or a token transaction. It does not identify the university as a pilot institution.
