By Merit Ibe
To support the sustainable development goals of the Federal Government, the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) is providing rural banking to its customers through partnership with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Its General manager, E -commerce and Logistics, Kunle Oladapo, dropped the hint at the Lagos Trade Fair, where he explained that financial institutions like NIRSAL will be at the counters to attend to customers.
Oladayo noted that NIPOST is developing micro finance banks so that customers can access soft loans to boost their business.
He explained that the micro finance system is not limited to PoS alone.
“We have counter transactions where you can save your money and apply for soft loans. Most of the banking activities will be carried out in our offices.”
“ NIPOST is supporting sustainable development goals by providing rural banking to the unbaked through partnership with Central Bank of Nigeria eg NIrSAL at our counters.”
The NIPOST boss added that the spread of post offices was an added advantage to her business of post cash and international financial service, saying “our counters have been automated with the latest ICT facilities, making it easy for customers to receive and transfer their money to any part of the country at the shortest possible time.
He disclosed that NIPOST is leveraging on technology to diversify and enhance her services which can be seen in different areas of its operation.
“It is pertinent to inform you that NIPOST has developed markets to move the economy forward in line with the best practices world wide.
“This can be seen in its drive of socio-economic development through online facility for producers of made-in-Nigeria goods to send their items and deliver those dispatches from other countries through e-commerce.”
He added that it also operates warehousing of goods in some post offices in northern part of the country.
Oladapo noted that the MSMEs are taking advantage of the service’s competitive rates to deliver goods to their customers all over the world, noting that NIPOST e-commerce and e-logistics ventures are gradually taking a centre place in business networking.
Since Nigeria is placing premium in developing SMEs, he said when they are developed, it would create more jobs.
“With the current event in the business world, everything is tending towards IT with a lot of emphasis on the development of MSMEs.
“NIPOST recognises that fact, we are tailoring our efforts towards bringing up the MSMEs because that is the only way we can develop our business too. We are also laying emphasis on ensuring quality of service too and last mile delivery.
“By the time we bring in these enterprises, we will have a lot to do and this will generate more revenue for us. Nigerians can trust NIPOST for the best delivery of their items, as we are leveraging on IT.
“We have put in place international Postal System (IPS) and Integrated Postal System (IPMS) to improve on our postal system. IPS has the ability to track your items until they get to the delivery point.
“We have also included a security module on all our tracking platforms, so that issues of missing items don’t come up again.”
