What Feature Phones Teach Us About Solving Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion Problem

Sometimes, even the most perfectly designed mobile app has zero real users. In Nigeria, many people still don’t use the latest smartphones. Instead, they rely on feature phones. On these old school devices, people transfer money by typing in star (*) and (#) symbols and numbers.

The Real Solution Isn’t Apps, It’s Adapting to Local Environments

Most crypto apps are built on the assumption that users have smartphones, fast internet, and know how to install apps. But imagine someone receives money from abroad, tries to use the app, and it just keeps freezing or takes forever to load. Most people will quickly feel, “This isn’t made for someone like me.” In the end, they just go back to their easy ways.

This article breaks down why most crypto apps struggle to succeed in this environment, and how Gluwa technology eliminates the struggles with borderless finance.

Adebayo’s Experience: <12 Seconds vs. 4 Minutes

Adebayo has been sending money for three years using the *966# code. He uses a low-end phone. Just like dialling a phone number, he presses *966# and the call button. A menu pops up, and then with a few more numbers, the transfer is complete. No internet needed at all.

Sending 5,000 naira to his younger sister in Lagos? It takes just 12 seconds.

But what about the crypto app his friend recommended? It was supposed to be faster and cheaper. But the app crashed twice, used up 15MB of data, and took 4 minutes to finish the same transaction. Adebayo never used it again.

This story is not unique; it is happening all across Nigeria. Crypto companies pour millions of dollars into beautiful mobile apps, but they are starting from the wrong assumptions. The reality? 89% of Nigerian users still rely on feature phones or low end Androids, usually with unstable internet. Here, the real digital payment “infrastructure” isn’t the app store; it is the USSD code system.

USSD: the Invisible Backbone of African Finance

USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) is an old school mobile technology that lets you do banking, send money, or top up your phone, all without needing the internet or a smartphone app. With just a button phone, you can access a whole range of financial services.

Take a look at Zenith Bank:

If you dial *966# and press the call button, a menu pops up right on your phone. It works perfectly on simple 2G networks and doesn’t use any mobile data at all. Even the most basic phones are enough. In reality, 6 out of 10 users in Nigeria have feature phones. The other 4 might have smartphones, but most cost less than $100.

Now, think about the cost: 1GB of data can be as much as 8% of the minimum monthly wage, and the internet connection can drop out several times a day. Using USSD costs just 10 naira per transaction, while a crypto app needs about 133 naira for data plus another 50 naira for transaction fees. USSD is up to 18 times cheaper.

How Does the Data Flow

Recently, local banks have started working with Google and others to combine AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) with USSD, so they can track new customers who come in through online ads. For example, a user clicks a Google ad, lands on an AMP page, enters their phone number, and presses a “Start transfer with USSD” button. Every step in this journey is recorded as data.

Existing customers already know the *966# code by heart and just type it straight into their phone dialer. These transactions only show up in the bank’s internal system; they don’t connect with outside ad data at all. In other words, you can only track the “ad click → new user transfer” journey, not what the millions of regular users are doing. For that, you need to analyse a completely separate set of data from within the bank.

Why Do Crypto Apps Struggle to Succeed?

Most crypto services are built around digital funnels and mobile apps, aiming to track every user action from the outside. But in the real world of Nigeria, the USSD code system and local infrastructure are simply too strong; crypto apps just can not compete.

That said, not everyone uses only button phones. In cities, younger people and parts of the middle class are actually starting to use crypto like Bitcoin and USDT to send money across borders or keep their savings safe.

This is why startups like Bundle Africa had a moment of growth. But in the end, unstable internet, expensive data, and low smartphone adoption were walls they couldn’t break through. By 2023, Bundle Africa had to shut down its exchange service. Even now, most people stick to USSD banking; there is no data cost, and it works even when the network is shaky.

How Far Has Blockchain + Feature Phone Actually Come?

It might sound impossible: connecting to global financial networks with nothing but an old school button phone. But right now, these impossible experiments are quietly happening across Africa. At the centre of it all? Feature phones, USSD codes, and blockchain.

**1. On/Off-Ramp: From Local Cash to Global Crypto, Just by Pressing a Few Buttons \ Take an African farmer who dials something like *998# on his button phone. His naira (local cash) can instantly be converted to crypto and sent abroad. The reverse is just as easy: crypto from overseas can be changed to local cash, right from his phone. Just a few years ago, this was almost unthinkable. Now, local financial companies and blockchain partners are connecting everything behind the scenes using APIs, so this invisible automation just works.

**2. Easy KYC: No Bank Account Needed, Just a Phone Number \ A lot of people in Nigeria don’t have a bank account or an official ID. Where traditional banking can not reach, new KYC tech lets people verify their identity with nothing but a phone number. No smartphone or internet required, just a basic phone opens up new financial services.

**3. Smart Contract Integration: Blockchain in Action, One Button Press at a Time \ When you punch in a few numbers on a button phone, a smart contract on the blockchain can run automatically behind the scenes. Every time a farmer borrows or repays money, that record gets written right to the blockchain, building a transparent credit history that anyone can trust.

**4. Data Management and Risk Tracking: Global Records, Even with Weak Internet \ In a country like Nigeria, where the internet can be spotty, it’s not always possible to push every transaction instantly to the blockchain. So, local partners save the data on their servers first and sync it to the blockchain whenever they get a good connection. This way, investors and institutions around the world can still verify these records in real time.

Gluwa Hybrid Infrastructure: Turning Millions of Transactions Into Reality

Gluwa is a fintech company run by a Korean founder, working on the ground in Nigeria. They’re building a new kind of financial system that connects button phones (USSD) with the blockchain (especially Creditcoin).

Gluwa actually succeeded in building a process where, when a Nigerian farmer enters a code on their button phone, the local financial company backend connects via API to the Creditcoin blockchain, and every detail; loans, transfers, repayments gets recorded as on-chain credit history.

So, how does it work?

Step One: The farmer dials a code like *996#, and a menu from their local microfinance institution appears. With just a few button presses, they can borrow money, send funds, or repay a loan. Every transaction is instantly saved to the financial company local server.

Step Two: The local server then periodically, or even instantly, pushes this data to the global Creditcoin blockchain network. Here, APIs and smart contracts automatically turn those records into tamper-proof blockchain transactions.

Step Three: The credit history is stored on the blockchain using an anonymous code, not a real name. Anyone, from global investors to other financial companies, can look it up. Trust and transparency now work across borders.

Step Four: Compliance with local regulations (like KYC/AML) is handled by the local partner. All data transfers are encrypted, and personal information is never exposed. While the process is not fully automated yet, millions of transactions have already been linked this way.

To make this easier to picture, imagine this:

A Nigerian farmer named Adebayo, with no internet access, uses his old button phone to dial *996# and presses the call button. He selects a loan, and with just a few more button presses, completes the process as if he were speaking to a bank clerk.

Each time, his transaction is first saved on the local financial company’s computer and then written directly to the blockchain. No one can tamper or erase this record, not even the company itself.

In fact, an investor in the US or Europe can see Adebayo’s repayment history and decide to invest in him. No app needed, no data required. With only a button phone, a whole new world of global credit becomes possible.
This is the hybrid innovation Gluwa is pioneering in Africa.

Final Thoughts: What Kind of Tech Strategy Works in Nigeria?

Practical hybrid design is the key

USSD codes and button phones are just the frontend. The user’s device never connects directly to the blockchain. All data recording and blockchain integration happen in the backend, through the local partner’s API. In other words, every blockchain connection runs through a local server. The phone is just a simple interface, and all blockchain interaction is managed server-side. This design lets blockchain finance actually work even in places with weak or no internet.

Transparent on-chain credit history is essential.

Open blockchain infrastructure gives developers real freedom. Platforms like Creditcoin become a foundation for building analytics tools, wallets, on/off ramps, investment products, and much more.

Open APIs and data standards: the starting point for global expansion.

With REST/gRPC APIs and SDKs, anyone can integrate. Just connect your API, and you can do custom development without having to rebuild the blockchain from scratch. You can even run your own node if you want.

The real cutting edge of tech is not the app store, it is this practical, unexpected link between button phones and blockchain. It’s time for more founders and developers to see the opportunities hiding in these hybrid systems.