By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Tuesday, December 5, 2017, has been fixed for the 2017 Financial Inclusion Conference organised by the Lagos Business School (LBS) in conjunction with BusinessDay, Microsave and International Finance Corporation.
The conference will be the largest multi-sector gathering of financial inclusion stakeholders in Nigeria, and will bring together more than 400 domestic and international speakers and delegates.
The theme of the conference is ‘Driving Inclusion with Digital Financial Services: Strategic Innovations to Reach the Last Mile,’ and it is will take place at the Honeywell Auditorium of Lagos Business School in Ajah, Lagos.
Leading digital financial services experts, industry researchers, donor agencies, legal practitioners, entrepreneurs and members of the National Assembly will also be in attendance to discuss and debate pertinent issues impacting financial inclusion in Nigeria.
The distinguished panellists to grace the conference include Mr Jones Onyereri, Chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on Banking and Currency; Modupe Ladipo, Board Chairman, EfinA; Mrs Toyin Adeniji, Executive Director, Micro Enterprises at the Bank of Industry; Mike Ogbalu, Interswitch Divisional CEO; and Usoro Usoro, General Manager, Mobile Financial Services at MTN Nigeria.
On that day, Sustainable and Inclusive Digital Financial Services initiative of LBS will launch the Digital Financial Services in Nigeria: State of the Market Report 2017.
The report contains evidence-based insights on the state of financial inclusion in the country. Using consumer demographic profiles, the report describes the characteristics of potential financial services customers and also presents an examination of the policy and legal statutes guiding financial inclusion, while proffering market-enabling strategies for attaining the Central Bank of Nigeria’s commitment of 20 percent financial inclusion by 2020.
The conference will also feature panel discussions and presentations by key stakeholders and decision-makers in the digital financial services industry around the topics of “Policy and Regulation,” “Last Mile Enablement of Digital Financial Services” and “Sustainable Business Models and Infrastructure.”
