By Crystal Ugoeze
The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has announced plans to introduce a wallet-based payment system that will enable students to authorise the direct transfer of approved tuition fees to their institutions, in a move to prevent duplicate payments and reduce disputes over refunds.
The system is expected to become operational in the 2026/2027 academic session, with a pilot phase already underway and more than 400,000 applications recorded ahead of the planned rollout.
NELFUND Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja during a media briefing on the proposed NELFUND 2.0 regional workshops scheduled to hold across the six geopolitical zones.
He said the new arrangement would allow students to initiate payments through their mobile phones, with approved funds transferred directly to their respective institutions rather than their personal bank accounts.
“We are putting the power for payment in the hands of the students. The payment to the institution will now be walletised, so that students can click on their phone and the institution is paid directly,” Sawyerr said.
He explained that the initiative was designed to address situations in which students paid their fees independently because they were unaware that NELFUND had already remitted the money to their schools.
According to him, such cases had resulted in duplicate payments and subsequent requests for refunds.
“For example, we paid the institution on Monday. The student did not know on Tuesday that we had paid and paid again by Wednesday to meet a deadline. Then on Friday they heard we had paid,” he said.
Sawyerr said the new system would improve transparency by ensuring students could confirm when their fees had been paid, while institutions would receive the funds directly.
The Executive Director of Operations at NELFUND, Mustapha Iyal, explained that the digital payment tokens would be linked to specific institutions and could not be transferred to students’ personal accounts or redirected to other schools.
“The token is attached to an institution. It is not a personal wallet like a mobile money wallet. Each token is attached to a certain institution, so it only goes there,” Iyal said.
He stressed that the scheme would not involve disbursing cash to students but would instead give them the authority to initiate payments directly to their approved institutions.
“We are not giving students money, but we are giving them power,” he added.
Using an example, Iyal said a student whose N200,000 tuition fee had been approved for the University of Maiduguri could authorise payment to the institution by activating the token. The money could not be redirected to Borno State University or any other institution.
He added that the funds would remain unpaid until the student authorised the transaction, after which the money could only be transferred to the designated school account.
Iyal said the system would also help address complaints about delayed refunds, noting that NELFUND was established to pay tuition fees directly to institutions rather than collect money from students for subsequent reimbursement.
“We are not encouraging refunds because that’s not what NELFUND is set up for,” he said.
He urged students seeking financial assistance to apply early and complete the required procedures before the stipulated deadlines. He also cautioned educational institutions against asking students to pay their fees upfront on the promise that they would receive refunds after NELFUND remitted the money.
The executive director further disclosed that the fund was developing a portal that would allow parents to verify whether their children’s school fees had been paid under the scheme by entering their matriculation numbers.
The portal would indicate the payment status without revealing the amount involved. According to Iyal, the measure is intended to prevent students from collecting money from their parents for fees that have already been settled through NELFUND.
He said the initiative followed cases in which institutions failed to notify students promptly after receiving payments, leaving beneficiaries unaware that their fees had been settled.
Meanwhile, Sawyerr said the proposed NELFUND 2.0 regional workshops would prepare participating institutions and other stakeholders for the upgraded Student Loan Application System amid expectations of increased demand.
He clarified that the projection of applications reaching two million reflected anticipated demand for student loans, not an increase in the fund’s available resources.
“The demand is huge, and I’m not sure we will ever have enough funds to cope with it,” he said, stressing the need to strengthen the fund’s technology, systems and processes to manage the growing number of applications.
The workshops, themed “NELFUND 2.0: Transforming Access, Simplifying Applications and Empowering Students,” will bring together heads of institutions, bursars, loan desk officers, IT administrators, students and community representatives.
Discussions will focus on application procedures, institutional verification, technical preparedness and improved service delivery, with the aim of reducing errors and strengthening coordination between NELFUND and participating institutions.