Every morning, Mrs Oyin Alade has the same routine. She walks to a Point-of-Sale (POS) stand close to her home in Ojota, Lagos, withdraws N5,000 and heads back home.
“The money has a purpose,” she told BusinessDay, adding that She has four children in school, and the N5,000 is divided between them. Each child gets N1,000 for transport and snacks during the school day.
But on a Tuesday morning, when she stood in front of the familiar POS terminal and prepared to enter her PIN, the agent asked her a question.
Had she heard about the Dangote Petroleum Refinery initial public offering (IPO)?
She had heard people talking about Dangote shares, but never imagined the offer was meant for someone like her.
The agent explained that she could buy 10 shares for N5,250.
For Mrs Alade, the idea was startling. “I have always associated shares with stockbrokers, banks, wealthy people and financial experts. The thought that i could walk into the same kiosk where i normally withdrew money and leave as a shareholder was difficult to believe,” she stated.
But she knew the agent. “He is someone i had used repeatedly for transfers and withdrawals. He is a trusted person, so there is no need to doubt him,” she affirmed.
So she decided to try. Within minutes, the transaction was completed. The money had left her account, but this time she was not simply taking cash home. She had subscribed for Dangote Refinery shares.
For the first time, the mother of four had a small ownership stake in one of Nigeria’s most talked-about industrial projects.
The experience illustrates what is beginning to happen at POS stands across the country: a place Nigerians traditionally use to move money is becoming a place where they can begin to own assets.
Hundreds of kilometres away in Sapele, Delta State, Ese Oghenekome, a 400 level student of Abraka University encountered the same possibility through a neighbourhood POS agent.
Oghenekome said he had gone to the POS stand for a routine transaction. Then came the conversation about Dangote shares.
The agent explained the offer, the N525 price per share and the minimum subscription of 10 shares.
“For someone who had never bought shares before, the idea was initially unfamiliar. But the process did not require a visit to a stockbroker.
There was no need to search for an investment office. The transaction could be initiated at the same POS terminal used for ordinary financial transactions.
So Oghenekome decided to give it a try. “A few minutes later, the process was completed. What started as an ordinary trip to a neighbourhood POS stand ended with me being a shareholder,” he stated.
That is the quiet human story behind the Dangote IPO. The refinery may be one of Africa’s biggest industrial projects, but the people buying into it are not necessarily wealthy investors sitting behind computers.
Some are people who save in small amounts, run businesses from kiosks, work for salaries or depend on daily income.
For them, the significance is not simply the number of shares they have bought. It is the feeling of being included.
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‘You can buy it here’
That message is increasingly being delivered by POS agents.
One of them, popularly known as Papa Ada, wanted to understand exactly how the Dangote IPO could be sold through a POS terminal.
Rather than guess, the agent contacted Moniepoint for clarification.
The process was explained: a customer could approach the agent, select the investment option on the terminal, provide the required details, choose the number of shares and make payment.
Once Papa Ada understood how it worked, the agent began talking to customers.
The conversations started with people who came to withdraw cash. Then those making transfers. Then people paying bills.
Instead of ending every transaction with a goodbye, the agent began asking customers whether they had heard about the Dangote IPO.
“Some were curious. Some asked how much they needed. Others wanted to know whether they needed an investment app or had to visit a broker,” Papa Ada told BusinessDay.
The agent could now explain that the subscription was available through the POS terminal. The response was bigger than expected.
“By the following day, 10 customers had expressed interest in buying the shares,” he disclosed.
For Papa Ada, the experience showed that the biggest barrier may not always be the amount required to invest. Sometimes, people simply need someone they trust to tell them that they can participate.
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The first-time investor effect
That same feeling is visible in conversations among Nigerians on social media.
One user, Kosisochi, posted on the day the IPO opened that she had bought Dangote shares through the Moniepoint app and was seeking reassurance about the transaction.
For a first-time investor, the question was understandable. The money had left her account. Had she really just bought shares?
Another user described the attraction of being able to participate without what Nigerians often call “dogon turenchi” — complicated procedures and unfamiliar financial language.
The appeal is straightforward. You do not necessarily need to understand the entire architecture of the Nigerian capital market before making your first investment.
You need to know what you are buying, how much it costs and how to complete the transaction.
For people who have spent years watching the stock market from the outside, that can be the difference between thinking about investing and actually becoming an investor.
This is where the story becomes bigger than one IPO. For years, Nigeria’s POS network has been one of the most visible signs of financial access.
The terminals are everywhere, outside markets, beside roads, in neighbourhood shops and near residential areas.
People use them to withdraw cash, transfer money and make payments.
The Dangote IPO is adding another function. The same infrastructure that helps Nigerians move money is now helping some of them put money into ownership.
Moniepoint Microfinance Bank and TeamApt Ltd. have collaborated to make the Dangote Petroleum Refinery IPO available through Moniepoint’s banking applications and nationwide POS network.
The offer gives Nigerians the opportunity to subscribe at N525 per share, with a minimum of 10 shares, or N5,250, and a maximum of 500 shares per transaction.
Moniepoint says its POS network spans all 774 local government areas in Nigeria.
Babatunde Olofin, managing director and chief executive officer of Moniepoint Microfinance Bank, said the model reflects the company’s belief that financial services should extend beyond transactions to opportunities to grow and build wealth.
“Moments like this are exactly why we built Moniepoint the way we did,” Olofin said.
Dennis Ajalie, managing director and chief executive officer of TeamApt Ltd., said the company’s payment infrastructure was connecting a capital-markets opportunity with a distribution network that reaches millions of Nigerians.
The technology matters. But on the ground, the human connection may matter even more.
For Mrs Alade, the stock market did not begin with a financial newspaper or a trading screen. It began with a familiar face at a POS stand.
For the customer in Sapele, it began with a routine visit to an agent. For the customers who responded to Papa Ada’s questions, it began with a conversation while they were carrying out an everyday financial transaction.
That is what makes the development different. The capital market has traditionally asked Nigerians to come to it. This time, an investment opportunity is being taken to where Nigerians already are.
At the roadside kiosk. At the neighbourhood shop. At the POS terminal around the corner. And for someone buying shares for the first time, that small change in location can feel enormous.
The journey from withdrawing N5,000 to owning 10 Dangote shares may take only a few minutes.
But for the person holding the receipt afterwards, it can represent the first time the stock market feels like it belongs to them too.
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