Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
In a bid to ensure financial inclusion for millions of underbanked and unbanked people across the country, Y’ello Digital Financial Services (YDFS) Limited, a subsidiary of MTN Nigeria, has launched its mobile money transfer services for South West Region.
The regional launch and sensitisation, which introduced the super-agent network service, MoMo Agent, to Yorubaland, took place Thursday at the popular Bodija Market in Ibadan, Oyo State. Officials of the company are also expected to move to other states in the region to set up MoMo Agents and sensitise people on how to enjoy the services.
The Senior Manager, Mobile Financial Services, MTN Nigeria, Tajudeen Omokhide, who led the company’s team to Ibadan, told journalists that the MoMo Agent Services would serve complementary functions to those of traditional banks, in order to capture millions of people in the informal sector in the financial ecosystem as directed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The MoMo Agent was officially launched in Abuja on August 29, 2019, with the aim of supporting the CBN’s drive for financial inclusion in Nigeria by providing safe and accessible money transfer service to millions of unbanked Nigerians via mobile phones.
Omokhide said the concern has always been on how to serve Nigeria’s unbanked and bring them into the financial system.
His words: “The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has its financial inclusion agenda. Nigeria is estimated to be about 200 million people; we have 36million people enrolled on Biometric Verification Number (BVN) and about 60million bankable adults not enrolled on BVN.
“The concern has been how do we reach these people and get them included in the financial ecosystem? It is for this reason, I believe, that the CBN is licensing companies like ours to assist in delivering financial services.
“The promise we made to Nigerians when we launched MoMo Agent Services in Abuja is that over the course of five years, we want to grow the agent network to 500,000. What that means is that 500,000 will have the opportunities of earning incomes by rendering the services available on this platform.
“For every transaction the agent undertakes on the MoMo Agent Platform, he earns a commission. Then, from what we have seen, doing this in other markets, and what we know of mobile financial services, people actually make a whole living out of rendering this service. So, the benefits are immense.”
