Merit Ibe
LAPO Microfinance Bank has unveiled a new savings product for mother and child, named ‘My Piking and I’.
My Pikin and I, which was launched in Lagos, is a savings account designed to provide support for women and children.
The service product is an opportunity for women to save towards the welfare of their children/dependents and provide all range of financial services to both women and children. The account allows you secure the child’s future till he/she attains adulthood.
Speaking during the launch, the outgoing Managing Director of the bank, Dr. Godwin Ehigiamusoe, said the product was put together in realisation of the cooperate objective of the organisation. He said the fact that women and children were neglected in the society gave the organisation the push to go into the business of helping to relieve them of the financial burden.
“A lot of things have made it difficult for people to inculcate savings culture and it has to be improved , I believe people have to plan their budget and determine what they really need over what they want, once they are able to do that, they are able to set some money aside. I think there should be availability of instrument like this that presents the opportunity for people to save.
“In remote communities people don’t have the opportunity to save, they prefer to hide their money under their mattresses, but with more products like this, the level of our savings culture will improve.
“We want to go beyond supporting the women to providing for children also. It is a service product which was initially for the child, My Pikin, but now, it has been extended to the women, hence, My Pikin and I. The account can be opened in the name of the child.”
The bank boss noted that when children are aware that they have an account, it inculcates in them the saving culture.
The initiative, which has its focus on the family, especially for women and children, according to him is to promote the culture of saving, which is key to financial literacy.
“The key objective for any savings product for us is to be able to assist the savers to build up capital because we realise that the challenge of most people especially women is the fact that they have very slim capital base in terms of building up their savings and the other as an institution for us is to boost our deposit base. This is a product that we already had, we just designed a new one which will eventually increase our deposit base, definitely in the next few months,” he added.