Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Shared Agent Network Expansion Facilities (SANEF), and Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access (EFInA) have commenced fresh collaboration to aggressively drive the financial inclusion targets set out by the apex bank.
CBN targets to bring at least 80 percent of Nigerian adults into the financial services net by 2020 and then raise that number to 95 percent by 2024, according to new milestones set by Governor Godwin Emefiele.
Latest figures by EfInA put Nigeria’s financial inclusion rate at 63.2%, meaning that as much 36.8 percent adults still lack access.
At a Financial Services Agents Forum for North-Central on Wednesday in Abuja, Ashley Immanuel, EFInA head of programs said their last survey showed over 36m adults in Nigeria were still completely financially excluded.
“They do not use bank accounts, Microfinance Banks, may be they save under their pillows, they borrow from family and friends. They do not use any form of financial system,” she stressed.
According to her, EFInA is working to expand financial inclusion and help Nigerians have access to financial services that meet their needs.
“We are focusing on agents because they are a crucial part of that inclusion because a lot of Nigerians say they do not have any bank branch or ATM near their homes both rural and urban areas, or people are busy to go queue up in banks, and agents can help solve these problems.”
Stressing the enormity of work to be done, she cited 2018 EFInA nationwide survey which showed only 3 percent of adults have used a bank agent in the past year. Only one percent said they have used a mobile money agent.
The quarterly forum was jointly organized by SANEF and EFInA and supported by the CBN, brought together top agents of various agent network providers on the way forward.
Immanuel said the forum was one of their strategies to grow agent banking further.
“We want to better understand how we can better support the agents, hear their primary challenges, and ultimately work out how we can all create a better environment for them to thrive, and empower other people in various communities.”
Joseph Attah, head financial inclusion secretariat at the CBN raised increasing concerns that the country may miss set targets except there is a strong collaboration.
“CBN is therefore working with agents to close the gap,” Attah who was represented at the event said.
He stressed EFInA’s survey which found 36.6 million Nigerians do not have access to financial serves.
He said the 2020, 80 percent financial inclusion target means 70 percent of payment penetration; 60 percent of savings penetration; 40percent of pension penetration; 40 percent of credit penetration.
“But right now, we are 1.9 percent pension penetration. It is becoming increasingly obvious that we cannot achieve our targets, so we need to change our approach.”
He said with that in mind, the CBN and other stakeholders are banking on agents to close this gap and drive a more inclusive payment ecosystem, noting direct correlation between financial inclusion and GDP.
Uche Uzoebo, Head of distribution and engagement, SANEF said the essence is to have a central point for financial inclusion and to deepen the financial access in the country.
She said objectives of SANEF includes creating 500,000 financial access points/agents by 2020, driving Bank accounts/BVN to 70 million and to reach 80% Financial Inclusion by 2020.
According to her, this cannot be achieved without the agent banking
since the conventional banking cannot cover everywhere.
“SANEF hopes to introduce more attractive products to increase agents’ patronage and revenue, engage in Financial Literacy and Campaign Awareness, provide Interoperable technology platform that would enable them transact easily, as well as ensure favourable pricing.”
Henry Chukwu, Programme specialist, Agent Networks and EFInA sounded optimistic that the 2020 target would be met with a good collaboration.
“We are very optimistic, that’s the reason we are organising this event, we believe that agents will play a key role in driving the achievement of the target,” he told BusinessDay.
Onyinye Nwachukwu, Abuja
