Serving NYSC Members to Open 200 New Bank Accounts—CBN

By Adedapo Adesanya

In order to achieve its financial inclusion objective, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has received an approval to allow serving members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to get posting to financial institutions.

However, the main job of corps members observing their national service at banks would be to open new accounts for the millions of unbanked persons in the country. They would therefore, be required to 200 new accounts by the end of the year.

These and more were revealed at the 8th National Financial Inclusion Steering Committee (NFISC) meeting that took place on Thursday, July 25, 2019.

At the meeting chaired by Mrs Aishah Ahmad, Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability at the CBN on behalf of the Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, the apex bank reiterated its desire to reach the 80 percent coverage by next year and 95 percent by 2024.

Business Post gathered that the chosen corps members will undergo specific training on financial education and financial literacy to enable them undertake financial inclusion as a primary assignment in the service year.

After completion of the training, they would be expected to particularly focus on women, youth, rural areas, the northern part of the country and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

The CBN said at the meeting that the major factors that undermined people’s access to financial services included low income, low education and low trust in financial service provider, hence the need for immediate solutions, stating that this necessitated the bringing onboard of serving members of the NYSC.

It was further disclosed that the ongoing peer educator programme of the NYSC would be harmonized with the new strategy and those to participate will now be part of the financial inclusion Community Development Service (CDs) Group.

Techniques for the implementation of the programme are currently under development and it is set to commence in October 2019. These processes according to the CBN would include the needed training, monitoring and incentives system to achieve the objectives.