By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government has inaugurated an agency banking platform alongside a debit card system and 27 courier service vehicles for the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) as part of efforts to digitalise and diversify the country’s postal agency.
The inauguration was made by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Mr Isa Pantami, on Thursday in Abuja, who noted that the organisation’s debit card and the NIPOST agency banking platform will deepen financial inclusion and boost Nigeria’s digital economy.
He explained that the 27 courier service vehicles will make NIPOST and its partner, Speedaf Express, compete favourably in the logistics industry.
He added that a digitised economy would improve the ease of doing business and transparency, as well as fight corruption.
Mr Pantami said, “NIPOST electronic debit card is the first of its kind in the country because it works online and offline, and it is the first time NIPOST comes with a solution like this because It is a multipurpose card for financial transaction, condition cash transfer, payment of bills and many more.
“The second product which is the NIPOST banking platform will allow the customers of NIPOST to conduct financial transactions.
“It is another innovative solution that will make our banking systems much easier and this is also in alignment with our proposal to come up with NIPOST microfinance bank.”
Speaking further, the Minister said, “We are in the process of digital transformation, and transformation will not be possible without digitalisation. What we are doing today is to ensure that NIPOST is digitalised so that they will deliver in their mandate by law.”
He further clarified that the essence of the new financial solutions is to provide financial services to those in the unbanked regions which remained lower than its target of 80 per cent as set by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
