By Ahmed Rahma
The Managing Director of Ecobank Nigeria, Mr Patrick Akinwuntan, has listed the opportunities in digital financial inclusion at the Ecobank-Vanguard Digital Financial Inclusion virtual summit in Lagos last Tuesday.
The bank chief, who also championed partnerships among operators, stated that “the biggest growth opportunities in digital financial inclusion lies in the ability to combine the mobile phone, cards and agency banking services in the most cost-effective and convenient way to reach the citizenry on a sustainable basis.”
He further explained that bank branches and ATM channels are cost-intensive to scale and less attractive to mass market financial service providers and agency banking, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), mobile app, card services, including internet banking as chatbots remain optimum channels for digital financial inclusion.
In his observation, the Nigerian financial inclusion trend has improved significantly with the exclusion rate declining by 15.7 per cent between 2008 and 2018.
Still speaking, Mr Akinwuntan mentioned that digital financial inclusion entails deployment of cost-saving digital means to reach financially excluded and underserved population with a range of financial services suitable to their needs and delivered at affordable cost, noting that it offers lots of benefits to all players in the value chain and also engenders wealth creation, drives economic growth and sustainable development.
“There is sustained growth in digital financial inclusion and it is largely driven by customer changing demands; the entrance of non-traditional players such as Fintechs, Payment Service Banks (PSBs); mobile services penetration and enabling regulatory environment.
“With the introduction of mobile wallet Tier 1 accounts accessible with a phone number, agency banking, micro-lending, mobile BVN, micro-insurance, cashless policy and others we should now begin to move from poverty alleviation to wealth creation for the citizenry.
“Further partnership and collaboration of all stakeholders remain critical to delivering further growth in digital financial inclusion.
“Ecobank has been committed to driving digital financial inclusion through her pan Africa network advantage, award-winning capabilities and various flagship products and services. We collaborate with Fintechs in Africa, as we are present across 33 countries in Africa.
“If you wish to bring your innovation into the financial system, you can reach out to us and we will guide you through the required regulatory requirements and then integrate your innovation into our digital payments and financial system,” he stated.
Although the telecom operators are playing a vital role in financial inclusion of unbanked and underbanked, collaboration and partnership of all stakeholders was key to increase the volume of digital transactions and mobile money activities, said the Chief Executive Officer, 9mobile, Mr Alan Sinfield.
Mr Sinfield commended the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for granting licenses to three PSBs, stating that they will further help to drive financial inclusion and critically stimulate savings and investment as more liquidity is mobilized from the informal sector to the mainstream financial system that will translate to increased economic activities.
He said, “Telcom operators in Nigeria have a customer advantage that financial institutions could benefit from to deepen their penetration. Banking started before telecommunication, but there are more active mobile lines than active bank accounts in Nigeria. A very key indication that we can achieve more through collaboration.”
Also speaking, the Director of Payment System Management at CBN, Mr Jimoh Musa, declared that financial inclusion was at the heart of the apex bank as it has been playing an active role through the strategy is for the whole economy, stressing that the CBN is interested in the progress of financial inclusion in Nigeria.
