Product case study
Live on iOS and AndroidMoniRef: a payment referee for buyers and sellers in Nigeria
Nigerians buy from Instagram pages, WhatsApp vendors and small online shops every day, and the payment step is where deals die. Buyers will not send first; sellers will not ship first. MoniRef puts a referee between them.
The problem
Trust is the bottleneck in Nigerian social commerce
Most small sellers in Nigeria sell through social media and collect payment by bank transfer. The buyer has no recourse if the item never arrives; the seller has no recourse if a buyer disputes a transfer after delivery. Both sides lose sales to that fear, and the honest sellers lose the most.
How it works
- 1Seller shares a MoniRef IDThe buyer pays through the app instead of to a personal account.
- 2Funds are held by a CBN-licensed payment partnerMoniRef never holds customer money itself. The seller can see the payment is there and ships.
- 3Buyer confirms on deliveryThe buyer inspects the item and releases a code; the payment is released to the seller.
- 4If it never arrives, the buyer is refundedA clear rule both sides agreed to before any money moved. No foul play.
What the team built
Everything from the first screen to the first thousand users
MoniRef is owned and operated by the Electrosoft group. The same team designed it, built it, launched it and markets it, which covers the full life of a regulated consumer fintech product, not just the code.
iOS and Android apps
Native-quality apps through App Store and Google Play review, with identity verification (NIN and selfie) built into onboarding.
Payment partner integration
Held funds, release codes, refunds and settlement through a CBN-licensed mobile money operator, with MoniRef as the referee rather than the custodian.
Backend and operations
Transaction state machine, dispute handling, KYC review tooling and the reporting the team runs the business from.
Brand and content
Positioning ("Pay. Held. Delivered."), scripted and produced video ads, and copy rules that keep every claim within what a payment referee can promise.
Growth
App campaigns across eight Nigerian cities, bid to in-app sign-ups rather than installs, with cost per sign-up brought to target within the first two weeks.
Support and compliance
Help centre, transactional email, data-protection practices and the documentation a licensed partner expects from a product it carries.
Where it stands
Launched October 2026, growing in eight cities
MoniRef reached roughly 2,000 downloads across both stores and about 1,000 registered users within weeks of launch, on a modest paid budget. Acquisition is now tuned to verified users, and the next phase is seller onboarding, since every seller who adopts MoniRef brings their own buyers with them.
Figures as at end of October 2026.
What this means for your project
If you are building anything that moves money, verifies identity or has to pass app-store and partner review in Nigeria, we have done it recently and can show you the scars. Talk to the team that built MoniRef.