TotalEnergies, partners InTouch, others in taking open banking to service stations

TotalEnergies Marketing Nigeria Plc in conjunction with InTouch and other partners, has deployed a mobile payment solution called ‘Touch Point’ across its 385 stations to enhance financial inclusion in rural areas across Nigeria.

With Touch Point, TotalEnergies offers to capture the banked and unbanked populations in rural, sub-urban and urban communities nationwide including Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, and Kaduna.

There are currently five (5) service bouquets being offered at the stations including airtime, data, bills payment, cash desposit and withdrawals.

TotalEnergies journey as a company has, over the years, evolved beyond a fuelling station to a solutions provider and hence, this value-added service offering, the company said in a release.

It said the partnership is in furtherance of its efforts to offer convenience to customers and live up to its commitment of being a one-stop service station where customers can access various goods and services across the country.

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“Touch Point” offers our customers, convenience, a 7-day accessibility to a variety of services and a brand name that is trusted, the company said.

In view of the growing need for the integration of banks and other financial institutions with innovators and customers in the financial services space and the increasing adoption of Application Programming Interface (“API”) based integration in the industry, TotalEnergies has partnered with organizations from different sectors of the economy to provide Touch Point.

Although financial inclusion has recorded growth over the years in Nigeria, there is still more to be done to reach the unbanked population as current spread of financial offers, still leaves parts of the country uncovered.

According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), only 51 percent have any form of interaction with financial services. The CBN, in a bid to provide an enabling environment which allows for customer-focused innovative financial services, issued the Regulatory Framework for Open Banking in Nigeria.

Open banking is a banking practice that provides third-party financial service, open access to consumer banking, transaction, and other financial data from banks and non-bank financial institutions using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).