First Bank of Nigeria Limited recently organised a Joint Seminar with sub-Saharan African Banking and Telecom Regulators to promote financial inclusion through digital innovations in sub-Saharan Africa.
The event which was held in Lagos recently was themed “Advancing ePayment and Digital Innovations in Africa- Evolution of Nigeria’s Payment Systems”.
The seminar was organised to provide key officers of regulatory authorities in these Markets – notably locations with FirstBank subsidiaries; Ghana, Senegal, DRC, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Guinea – a platform to get familiar with developments in the Nigerian Payment Systems and Digital Products Industry thereon replicating and adopting the learnings from the seminar with a view to bolster the finance industry in their respective countries.
Key players and regulators in the finance and digital banking ecosystem at the event included: Agada Apochi, Managing Director/CEO, Unified Payment Services Ltd; Mike Ogbalu, CEO, Verve International; Musa Jimoh, Deputy Director, Payments System Policy and Oversight, Central Bank of Nigeria; Premier Oiwoh, Managing Director, NIBSS; Bashirat Odunewu, Group Executive, International Banking Group, FirstBank and Adesola Adeduntan, CEO, First Bank of Nigeria Limited amongst others.
Speaking on FirstBank’s leading role in promoting digital banking and financial inclusion across the country, Adeduntan said, “FirstBank by any measure has been a success story as far as digital banking is concerned.
“Today, we have more than 8.5million people on our USSD *894# banking platform, more than 3 million people on our Firstmobile platform. We are the only Bank in Nigeria that has issued cards in excess of 10 million in Nigeria. When you are looking at that institution that has achieved a lot in terms of digital payment, it is FirstBank. More than 80 percent of our transactions are carried out on our digital channels.”
According to EfinA’s 2018 biennial report, 63.3percent of Nigerian adult population are financially served while 36.8 percent are unbanked. This leaves the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) with inclusion gap of 16.8 percentage points if the regulator is to achieve its exclusion target of 20 percent by the year 2020.
“We have been very aggressive with our FirstBank Agent Banking network. Today we have over 27,000 agents spread across the nooks and crannies of the country, indeed second to none as far as Nigeria is country. At FirstBank, the economic growth and development of our host communities is important to us; assisting Nigeria and the continent at large address poverty is very imperative and that is why for us financial inclusion is a key part of our business strategy,” Adeduntan concluded.
In furtherance of CBN’s mandate to promote a sound financial system in Nigeria and the need to enhance access to financial services for low income earners and unbanked segments of the society, the industry regulator plans to on-board 500,000 mobile money agents by the year 2020.
Less than six months before the projected deadline, the apex bank has enrolled 65,753 mobile agents, data obtained from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) showed.
This is 86.85 percent less than the 500,000 mobile agents targeted by the regulator to serve about 105 million adult Nigerians by 2020. The central bank would have to enrol addition 434,247 mobile money agents to achieve its next year target.
However, financial industry stakeholders; the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System Plc., CBN, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), commercial banks and other operators in the payment system in 2018, developed a Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility (SANEF) initiative to offer basic financial services across the country.
Thus, the apex bank mandated all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and Microfinance banks to open a minimum of 7.6 million new savings accounts to meet its financial inclusion target.
First Bank of Nigeria Limited (FirstBank) is the premier Bank in West Africa and the leading banking services solutions provider in Nigeria for 125 years. With some 15 million customer accounts, FirstBank provides a comprehensive range of retail and corporate financial services with over 750 business locations.
The Bank has international presence through its subsidiaries, FBN Bank (UK) Limited in London and Paris, FBNBank in the Republic of Congo, Ghana, The Gambia, Guinea, Sierra-Leone and Senegal, as well as a Representative Office in Beijing.
ENDURANCE OKAFOR
