Grey, a Y Combinator-backed cross-border payments company, says the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has approved it to operate as an International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO). According to the company’s statement, which trade press reported on 2 November 2026, the approval covers inbound international transfers into Nigeria: person-to-person, business-to-person and business-to-business payments.
Grey’s co-founder and chief executive, Idorenyin Obong, said that “securing CBN approval to operate as an IMTO is an important step for Grey in Nigeria.” He said the approval strengthens the company’s ability to facilitate inbound international transfers.
What the approval covers
Condia explains that an IMTO receives money sent from abroad and pays it out to recipients in Nigeria in naira, and that such a licence covers only inbound transfers. The statement did not disclose an amount, and this is not a funding event.
The stage is not confirmed
Grey’s own wording is “approval to operate as an IMTO”, and this article uses it. Some outlets, including Condia, call the same event a licence. Condia reports that the CBN’s January 2024 guidelines introduced two stages, an approval in principle and a final approval. The statement does not say which stage Grey has reached.
We found no CBN notice about Grey. A CBN page listing licensed IMTOs, retrieved on 14 November 2026, shows 108 operators and no entry for Grey. The page shows no update date, so that absence does not settle the question.
Context
The approval follows the launch of Paycheck, a salary account for professionals paid in US dollars, pounds or euros. Grey announced the product at Moonshot by TechCabal in Lagos at the end of October. At the event, Grey said it had more than three million users and had processed nearly $5 billion in payments, and that its payment volume rose 170% year on year. These are company figures.
Technext writes that Grey built its cross-border business largely on North American money-services registrations and local banking partners. Disrupt Africa reports that Grey is registered as a Money Services Business with FinCEN in the United States and with FINTRAC in Canada. Technext also reports that the company’s statement, citing World Bank data, puts Nigeria’s personal remittance inflows at about $22.8 billion in 2025. We have not checked that figure against the World Bank.
What we could not verify
We did not find a Grey press release on the company’s own website. The Grey homepage text we retrieved on 14 November 2026 did not mention the CBN approval. The statement is available only through the trade press reports listed below. We have not spoken to the company.
Sources
- Technext (Blessed Frank), 'Grey secures CBN IMTO approval to formalise inbound remittance rails in Nigeria' (2 November 2026)
- Condia (Justina Salami), 'Grey secures IMTO licence as Nigeria's remittance sector gets new competition' (2 November 2026)
- Disrupt Africa (Tom Jackson), 'Nigeria's Grey secures CBN approval to operate as IMTO' (5 November 2026)
- TechCabal (Emmanuel Nwosu), 'Grey wants 20 million users. Its next bet is salary accounts' (29 October 2026)
- Central Bank of Nigeria, 'International Money Transfer Operators' list (page retrieved 14 November 2026)
TopicsAfrican Startups FinTech Nigeria