By Oluwakemi Kindness
The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has begun piloting a tokenised payment system to prevent students from paying school fees twice and reduce refund complications, with nearly 400,000 applications received.
NELFUND Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed this on Wednesday during a press briefing, saying the system would allow students to authorise payments directly to their institutions through tokens linked to their schools.
He said the initiative followed cases where students paid fees without knowing that NELFUND had already settled the bills, resulting in duplicate payments and refund requests.
“We want to eliminate that need for refunds. So we’re placing the power of payment in the hands of the students,” Sawyerr said.
He explained that students would use an application on their phones to authorise payments, while the funds would go directly to the designated institutions rather than their personal bank accounts.
NELFUND Executive Director, Mustapha Iyal, said the tokens would be restricted to specific institutions and could not be transferred to students’ personal accounts or redirected to other schools.
Iyal confirmed that the pilot had commenced, but the officials did not disclose how many applications had been processed under the trial or when the system would be fully implemented.
NELFUND administers the Federal Government’s interest-free student loan scheme, which covers approved institutional charges and, where applicable, upkeep expenses.
