The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) had, on Wednesday, 8^th May 2024,  through its Registrar-General, Hussaini Magaji (SAN), mandated all persons involved in the Point Of Sales (POS) business operations to be registered with the CAC.

According to the Commission in a letter to all affected banks, the Registrar-General stated that the instruction was in line with the CBN Guidelines for Agent Banking, 2013, and Section 863(1) of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), 2020, which provides thus;

“A person or association of persons shall not carry on business in Nigeria as a Company, Limited Liability Partnership, Limited Partnership or under a Business Name, without being registered under this Act”.

Aside from being an avenue for job creation, POS operators play a significant role in financial transactions nationwide. The move to compel the registration of POS terminals has come at a much-needed time as these channels have been a key part of fraudulent transactions.

The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System in its Annual Fraud Landscape (January to December 2023) report, stated that financial institutions lost about N17.67 Billion to fraud. It was further reported that the Web and POS channels were the most exploited payment channels by fraudsters in 2023, making this move by the Commission, an imperative one.

This directive has made it mandatory for POS terminals, whether as agents, merchants, or individuals to register with the Corporate Affairs Commission before the commencement of business, while those that already commenced business were given 7^th July 2024 as the deadline to register same.

The following are the requirements for the registration of Business Names on the CAC Portal;

1. Two proposed names of the enterprise.
2. Nature of the business to be carried out by the enterprise.
3. Office address (Number of house, name of street, LGA, State), email address, phone number.
4. Sole Proprietor’s data (date of birth, residential address, phone number, email address)
5. Valid ID Card of Sole Proprietor
6. Passport photograph of Sole Proprietor
7. Signature of Sole Proprietor

It is imperative to note that after registering these POS operators as a Business Name, it is mandatory for them to also liaise with their various POS agents/vendors to update their POS machines. This update is necessary to align the Business name and the POS machine and the failure to do this means the flaunting of government order which will attract dire consequences.

Written by Vera Enubianozor for The Trusted Advisors

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