Assessment of Customer Loyalty Drivers in Mobile Money Services in Adamawa State

Mobile money services have expanded rapidly in Nigeria's North East geopolitical zone, offering financial access to underbanked populations in states like Adamawa, yet the drivers of customer loyalty in this context remain underexplored. This study assesses the key drivers of customer loyalty in mobile money services among users in Adamawa State. A survey research design was employed, and data were collected from 280 mobile money users in Yola, Mubi, and Numan Local Government Areas using a structured questionnaire. Customer loyalty was measured by service continuance intention, recommendation behaviour, and active usage frequency. Potential loyalty drivers examined included service reliability, perceived value, trust, customer service quality, and agent network adequacy. Multiple regression analysis was applied to identify significant loyalty predictors. Results indicated that trust was the strongest predictor of mobile money loyalty (beta = 0.46, p < 0.01), followed by agent network adequacy (beta = 0.34, p < 0.01) and service reliability (beta = 0.28, p < 0.05). Perceived value had a significant positive effect, while customer service quality had the weakest but still significant impact. The study concludes that trust-building and an adequate agent network are the most critical investments for mobile money operators seeking to build customer loyalty in Adamawa State. It recommends agent performance monitoring frameworks and transparent fund recovery processes for failed transactions to sustain user trust. Keywords: mobile money, customer loyalty, Adamawa State, trust, agent network