As part of efforts to promote and deepen financial inclusion among the unbanked and underbanked population in Nigeria, Ecobank, Sanef, Nigeria’s most customer-focused telecommunication, 9mobile and other stakeholders in the financial institution has plotted a roadmap to actualizing the cashless vision of the Central Bank of Nigeria. The virtual Forum Series which was organized by Ecobank and Vanguard Newspaper focused on Mobile Payment Innovation and Closing the Financial Inclusion Gap – post Covid-19.
In his capacity as the arbiter of the financial institution, the Central Bank Nigeria, Director, Payment System, Jimoh Musa, stated that Nigeria has made a commitment to reduce the numbers of those that are excluded from the financial services from 46% to 20% in 2020. He said that “we also recognize the fact that the requirement for opening bank accounts was also very stringent, it requires valid documents like passport, or valid driver’s license; without it you cannot open a bank account”.
He emphasized that the idea and the strategy of the CBN to introduce agent banking and mobile money was brought to solve the access, problem, proximity issues. “One of the things that we found was that it was very difficult for people in the rural communities to have access to financial tochpoints, to the extent that people in the rural communities would have to travel for 10 to 20 minutes to get to the nearest financial tochpoints”
Responding to the CBN’s charge, the CEO of 9mobile, Alan Sinfield, stated that the telecom company is continually exploring opportunities to bring creative solutions to Nigerians. He stated that “9PSB provides an excellent opportunity to further pursue this commitment to serve more people in a manner that improves their quality of life. We are confident that 9PSB will also stimulate savings and investments as more liquidity is mobilized from the informal sector into the mainstream financial system. This will translate into increased economic activities in the informal sector and the overall economy”.
Sinfield started further that there is need for collaborations and partnerships to achieve more inclusion. “We are willing to partner with financial institutions to reach out to the unbanked and under-banked population in Nigeria. Telcos in Nigeria have some customer data advantage that Nigeria’s financial institutions can benefit from to deepen their penetration. Even though banking started long before mobile telecommunications, there are more active mobile lines than active bank accounts.
According to the Managing Director and Regional Executive of Ecobank Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Akinwuntan, Nigeria’s population of over 200 million people underscores the unique potentials inherent in the financial inclusion drive. “Essentially, how we move from the narrative of using financial inclusion for poverty alleviation, to moving it to using inclusion to prosper wealth creation and to provide gainful economic engagement with the largest pool of participants in the economy”.
