More than 110 million mobile money accounts could be achieved in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA) has said.
The New-York-based institution, however, explained that for the figures to be achieved in the next five years, it will take a lot of collaborative effort.
“The proliferation of mobile money is important for hard-to-reach populations at the core of the UNSGSA’s strategic priorities. The potential for its global growth remains significant,” UNSGSA said in its recent report.
The report stated that with the hard-to-reach at risk of becoming the ‘harder-to-reach’, it will be essential for governments and the private sector to build a suite of public goods of ‘pre-requisites.’
In other words, the foundational necessities that will help enable the harder-to-reach to enter the formal digital economy, the full suite of financial services should be provided in a very responsible manner so that access to finance, and its usage, helps people-and never harms them.
“This means we should aim to mitigate the growing risk that comes with technological progress, such as fraud or the loss of data. As we have seen with our work on Finetch, technology could bring the solution to address the risks created by technology,” it read stating that regulators could benefit from adopting regulatory technology solutions.
With a target to include 80 percent of Nigeria’s adult population by 2020, the Central Bank of Nigeria has directed its focus to implement both mobile money and bank-led model in driving financial inclusion.
The apex bank introduced Payment Service Bank (PSB) in 2018 to allow Telcos to have a share of the financial services industry to bridge the country’s financial inclusion gap.
According to the UNSGSA, it supported Nigeria’s Central Bank “in the issuance of the payments bank regulation in 2018.”
The foundation stated in its report that digital technology emerged as the main opportunity to expand financial inclusion more quickly, affordably and conveniently for people across the globe, and has been the constant thread throughout the advances that have been recorded.
“These include digital identification, connectivity, digital and financial literacy, data privacy and cyber security, among others.”
The provision of identification and other relevant documents are the bedrock for on boarding a customer in the bank. The lack of identity is one of the reasons why 36.6 million Nigerian are excluded from the financial cycle, BusinessDay survey has shown.
According to Lanre Osibona, the Senior Special Adviser to the President on Information, Communication, and Technology over 37 million Nigerians have been registered under the National Identity Number (NIN).
Nigeria’s current population is estimated by the United Nations (UN) to be around 201 million people; going by that figure, Africa’s most populous nation has about 164 million of its citizens without any formal means of identification, as compiled from BusinessDay’s calculation.
“In some nations, financial exclusion is even on the rise. Technology-led innovation in financial services, Fintech, has the potential; to play a transformed role to combat exclusion,” UNSGSA said.
The foundation, however, recommended that proper infrastructure and policies that will allow innovation to flourish are needed for Finetch to work for customers.
In the coming years, rising inequality will continue to be a concern. In some countries, for example, women already encounter more difficulties than men in access and usage of finance, the report stated.
“All of these challenges that confront us today could serve as catalysts for real change tomorrow. The next 10 years represents an immense opportunity to innovate and transform people’s lives for the better through inclusive finance,” the foundation said in its report titled: Financial Inclusion- Building on 10 years of progress.
