Following the frequent robbery attacks on mobile money agents across the country, an unfortunate development threatening financial inclusion drive of Central Bank of Nigeria, Paga, foremost mobile money operator has adopted a number of measures to checkmate attacks on its agents.
Nigeria’s apex bank has in the last eight years embarked on remarkable moves which include licencing of banking/mobile payments systems, agent banks, increase in ATMs and POS to deepen financial but robbery attacks on some of these operators have frustrated the operation in certain areas.
But Paga, established in 2009 with a purpose to eliminate the use of cash for transactions and access to financial services has adopted a pattern of recruiting agents that know their communities very well and most of the people. In addition to provision of insurance to Paga agents, “we believe that the selection of agents that are vast with their communities will assist in their protection”, Jay Alabaraba, Co-founder of Paga told BusinessDay in a Webinar chat recently.
He said that Paga system allows its agents to lodge cash in any bank to reduce quantum of cash with them at any time. Alabaraba believed that these measures will assist in checkmating attacks on the agents/
Paga has over 27,000 agents across the country and 30 percent of them are women. According to him, the employment opportunity is huge as each agent has average employment of three persons. He said Paga presently has direct employment of over 450 across regions.
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Alabaraba further said that Paga has successfully established a well trusted and known brand – earning the trust and confidence of people and the network. “Our Agents have come to feel a keen sense of honor to be part of Paga. While some agents use other competitor brands, the measure of trust they ascribe to Paga is admirable so much so that many of them leave their daily commissions in their Paga accounts overnight”.
On the effects of lockdown over Covid-19, he agreed that the lockdown affected businesses “and at Paga, we were concerned about the eco-system, our agents and their ability to stay in business”. But the opportunity of the lockdown came as we started to see a lot more sign up by customers for digital means of financial transactions and registration for wallet transfers as people did not want to interact physically or handle cash.
“The lockdown was both a concern and opportunity. The opportunity was huge. It was something we latched onto and know our customers better as we brought solutions that helped our customers meet their needs”, the Paga co-founder said.
Recognising Nigeria as a market where adoption of digital services is growing, he said Paga has seen the growth in recognition of the value of digital payment on robust platform of Paga. The growth has been sustained coming into 2021 as we are seeing about 70% monthly increase of users in direct customer channels.
Stating that Paga is focusing on Nigeria as its first market, Alabaraba revealed that Paga is extending its operations to Ethiopia and Mexico. “What we have built is a platform that is multi-lingual that can support any languages and multi-currency; this means we have a platform that allows us go to other geography. We are currently expanding into Ethiopia and Mexico”.
According to him, Paga is a champion for inclusion and diversity, not only on financial inclusion by reducing the use of cash and bringing financial services to the mass market, but more important is economic inclusion by creating jobs, making small businesses grow, helping develop more opportunities for employment to be created and pushing the economic frontiers.
He said Paga will continue to support small businesses and help young graduates start their career at Paga.
