From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
Following the Federal Government’s threat to withdraw the licences of banks that indulge in reckless retrenchment of Chief Executives of Deposit Money Banks (DBMs) yesterday agreed to minimise the rate of retrenchment in their institutions. They however noted that it will not hesitate to exit people on the reason of fraud and other offences.
Speaking on behalf of bank chief executives, the Managing Director of Standard Chartered Bank, Mrs Bola Adesola, said , however, that banks are trying to minimise the exit of people from institutions. She said that the banks have noted the market sentiments and will try to do something differently going forward.
“We understand the implication of people not being in employment. We know what the situation is like in the country. We are looking at ways of ensuring that we minimise exit from our institutions.”
There will always be exits as you know. If there is fraud and so on and so forth people will exit institutions. It is something we have discussed in the past where the governor of Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN) prevailed on the banks to minimise the exits from institutions. So, we have noted the market sentiments and I am sure that going forward, it will be different. We must recognise also that there must be reasons why people will leave and it is not just the banking industry, telecoms and so on. We have had this type of situations as well before. But it is something that we will manage”.she explained.
However, the Director, Banking Supervision of the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN), Mrs Tokunbo Martins, expressed worry that despite all the efforts by the apex bank to ensure that all Nigerians are included in the banking system, the nation still has inclusion rate of 60.5 per cent.
She noted that the apex bank is targeting 80 per cent inclusion by 2020 and by the end of this year it would achieve additional 8 per cent which is about six million of the population.
“Financial inclusion is very important to the economy today. In the last Bankers Committee we discussed the rate of exclusion and as at today we have financial inclusion rate of 60.5 per cent and you recall that the target is that by 2020 we should have 80 per cent of the population included.
So, the CBN has agreed the target with commercial banks and also the micro-finance banks and at the end of this year 2016, we hope and are working towards increasing the inclusion rate of 8 per cent. About 6 million people to be covered.
And strategies have been mapped out, milestones and everything has been mapped out to achieve that target this year. Banks and micro-finance banks have been given targets for savings, have been given targets for credits, and targets for so many things like access points. In order to achieve this target, there is agreement to move away from the traditional access point to more electronic point.
Another issue is that an agreement has been reached with the commercial banks and micro-finance banks on a linkage model. What this linkage model means, is that the commercial banks will lend to the microfinance banks and they will on-lend to their customers to the remotest parts of this country. That, to a very large extent will enhance financial inclusion” she further, explained.