The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has begun piloting a new token-based payment system aimed at preventing students from paying their school fees twice and reducing complications associated with refunds.
NELFUND Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed this during a press briefing on Wednesday, explaining that the new arrangement would enable students to authorise payments directly to their institutions using digital tokens linked to their respective schools.
According to Sawyerr, the initiative was developed to address cases where students paid their fees independently without knowing that NELFUND had already settled the bills on their behalf.
He explained that delays in communicating completed transactions had sometimes resulted in duplicate payments, leaving students to seek refunds from their institutions.
Using an example, Sawyerr said the fund could pay a student’s fees on Monday, but the student, unaware of the transaction, might make another payment on Wednesday before discovering on Friday that the fees had already been settled.
He described such incidents as genuine mistakes rather than deliberate attempts to obtain money improperly.
Under the proposed arrangement, beneficiaries will receive notifications when their approved school fees are ready for payment. They will then use an application on their mobile phones to authorise the transaction, allowing the money to move directly to the designated institution.
Sawyerr stressed that the system would not give students unrestricted access to the approved tuition funds. Instead, it would empower them to initiate payments while ensuring that the money could only be transferred to the institution for which it was approved.
He added that students would not be able to redirect the funds to their personal bank accounts or transfer them to another school.
NELFUND Executive Director, Mustapha Iyal, also clarified that the token was not a personal or mobile money wallet but a payment authorisation mechanism tied to a specific institution.
He explained that the arrangement was designed to improve transparency, strengthen accountability and reduce the administrative burden associated with processing refunds.
Iyal disclosed that the pilot phase had commenced, with the fund receiving nearly 400,000 applications under the ongoing process. However, officials did not announce a specific date for the system’s full implementation.
The development comes as the Federal Government continues to implement its student loan programme, established to ease the financial burden of tertiary education and expand access to higher learning for eligible Nigerians.
The new payment mechanism is expected to improve coordination between students, their institutions and NELFUND, particularly where school registration deadlines make timely confirmation of tuition payments essential.
