Chinwendu Obienyi
Transformative innovations in technology can drastically drive presence and unlock potential economic growth when offering financial services to the unbanked and underbanked populace. This was the view of digital financial experts at the 2019 Digital PayExpo conference and Exhibition in Lagos recently.
Speaking during the conference, Managing Director, Intermarc Consulting limited, Jacqueline Jumah, noted that this year’s edition of Digital PayExpo seeks to address the increasing need to understand the business case for financial inclusion and leverage technological innovation to improve the customer value proposition in banks amd financial services through commercially viable approaches.
Jumah explained that with notable strides and effort in advancing financial inclusion over the last eight years, the latest Findex report from Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access (EFInA) revealed that Nigeria experienced a decline in financial inclusion between 2014 and 2016 despite Nigeria’s ambitious goal of reducing financial exclusion rate to 20 per cent.
She said: “The advent of Fintech has propelled developments in the industry through synergies with financial service providers, Despite many transformative innovation and initiatives in driving financial inclusion and increasing adoption levels among customers regular account activity remain a challenge, at 36 per cent,activity levels.
There appears to be greater focus on increasing the number included customers rather than a focus on the user experience and innovation which drives adoption and the long term account usage.”
Delivering a keynote address on Financial inclusion: Delivery by Fintech and low-cost initiatives, Chief Executive Officer, EFInA, Esaie Diei, explained that digital finance and financial inclusion have not adequately permeated vast segments of the Nigerian population which suggests an existing gap between the availability of finance, its accessibility and use.
According to him, Fintechs lose out profitability and increase the growing concerns on how cost effective it is to deliver digital financial inclusion.
Diei said, “Digital financial inclusion helps banks lower costs by reducing queuing lines in banking halls, reduce manual paperwork and documentation and to maintain fewer bank branches, For financial and monetary system regulators, digital financial inclusion also helps to reduce the amount of physical cash in circulation and is instrumental in reducing high inflation levels in developing countries like Nigeria.