From Uche Usim and Adanna Nnamani, Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday charged players in the financial ecosystem to work collaboratively in attaining the 95% financial inclusion target contained in the country’s policy documents.

He gave the charge at the International Inclusion Conference 2022 themed: “Financial Inclusion For All: Scaling Innovative Digital Models”.

The President, represented by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr Mohammed Musa Bello, reckoned that financial inclusion stakeholders have been at the forefront of providing innovative solutions for addressing some of the pressing issues faced in the financial space.

“For instance, to increase financial services access points in underserved locations in the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria issued the Payment Service Bank regulatory framework. Furthermore, through the Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility (SANEF), the number of agent banking locations in the country is now over 1.4 Million from 86,000 in 2018. In 2019, I launched the Micro Pension policy which was aimed at deepening pension penetration amongst M.S.M.E.s and the informal economy. We also initiated policies for Micro-Insurance and Collective Investment. These initiatives are geared toward providing access to a wide range of financial products and services to the underserved in line with our National Financial Inclusion objective,” he revealed.

Also speaking, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, said the Anchor Borrower’s Programme (ABP) launched by the apex bank has led to over 4 million farmers, majority of who had no bank accounts hitherto, being absorbed into the formal banking space.

He recalled that as of 2008, 52.2 per cent of Nigerian adults were financially excluded.

Related News

“More worrisome was the fact that many adults were financially excluded. Youth, aged 18-35 years, and MSMEs (which employed over 60 per cent of Nigerians), were disproportionately excluded from access to financial products and services.

“Consequently, stakeholders undertook the onerous task of driving access to finance for the benefit of the hitherto excluded segments through the National Financial Inclusion Strategy. As of the end of 2020 the financial exclusion rate had reduced to 35.9 per cent. While this remains high when considered as absolute numbers, it is a huge improvement when compared to the position as of 2008. This change did not happen by accident but resulted from the decisive and concerted approach by National Financial Inclusion stakeholders to address key pain points and bottlenecks that were deterring financial inclusion”, Emefiele explained.

Emefiele stated that leveraging digital innovations to drive financial inclusion was one of the main motivations for the launch of the eNaira, Nigeria’s digital currency.

“To ensure that the eNaira is enabled for financial inclusion, a USSD channel for eNaira was created. This modification has now made it possible for all generations of mobile devices including old phones, including those feature phones owned by rural dwellers to be compatible with the interface of the eNaira. Accordingly, even the most remote and the most vulnerable households and businesses now have unlimited and uninhibited access to the digital currency, the eNaira. The offline and smart contract capability of eNaira is a catalyst for broad adoption in underserved areas”, he said.

In her remarks, Queen Maxima of the Netherlands said Nigeria recorded a five per cent growth in financial inclusion between 2007-21.

“Banking is largely a township phenomenon. We have a chance to use electronic banking to boost inclusion. We can explore NIN BVN and the passage of the digital protection Act will also help.

“There is a need to expand agent networks, grow ICT infrastructure and all that. We will continue to work with President Buhari and ensure a coordinated approach in boosting financial inclusion across the government and the private sector,” she said.