The Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, has explained how the agency’s newly introduced tokenised payment system will change the way Nigerian students pay their school fees.
Speaking during a briefing with journalists on Wednesday, Sawyerr said the initiative was designed to prevent double payments of school fees by students and address complications associated with refunds.
He disclosed that nearly 400,000 applications had been received under the ongoing process.
According to him, the new system will enable students to initiate payments directly to their respective institutions through tokens linked to their schools.
Sawyerr explained that students would use a mobile application to authorise the transfer of approved loan funds directly to their institutions, eliminating the need for the money to pass through their personal bank accounts.
“We discovered that there were some issues with students being informed in good time that their payments had been made by NELFUND, which meant that some of them would pay because they hadn’t realised that NELFUND had paid already,” he said.
DAILY POST reports that NELFUND has disbursed at least ₦372.62 billion since the launch of its student loan application portal in 2024.
The loans cover tuition fees and upkeep allowances for eligible students.