EFINA Partners SANEF And NIBSS To Deepen Financial Inclusion In Nigeria

Wednesday, July 31, 2019 / 09.00AM / Bukola Akinyele and Nifemi Taiyese for Proshare WebTV

EnhancingFinancial Innovation Access, EFInA, a financial development agency hosted itsmaiden geo-political zonal financial services forum for Agents in Lagos.

Itwas an opportunity for stakeholders to discuss and interact on how to scalefinancial inclusion in the country through agents.

Theforum brought together bank officials, mobile money vendors, super agents, andother players in the financial sector.

Supporting Inclusion

Inhis opening remarks, the CEO of EFInA, Mr. Essaie Diei, informed stakeholdersthat the forum was designed to support Agent Banking and make the Nigerianfinancial system work better especially for the poor, by way of increasingaccess to financial services.

Accordingto him, the 63.2% of Adults in Nigeria are financially included, while heassured stakeholders that the plan to achieve 80% financial inclusion by2020 and 95% inclusion by 2024, is still a major priority for EFInA.

Speakingfurther, Mr. Diei said EFInA supports all the initiatives to grow financialinclusion in the country while deepening service delivery across geo-politicalzones.

Henoted that from the 2018 survey, 26.6m adult Nigerians were financiallyexcluded and close to 36.6m of the adult population did not have access to bankaccounts or other means of payment.

Thesurvey also revealed that 3% of adults used bank accounts in the past 12months, and 1% have used mobile money agents.

Italso showed that in the southwest region, 40.2% of the adult population are notaware of having financial access.

Hewelcomed the Shared Agent Network Expansion Facilities, SANEF objectivewhich is to distribute over 500,000 financial access points and agents acrossthe country in a bid to help close the gap in financial inclusion.

Dieiappreciated women in world banking and the several initiatives embarked upon toimprove financial inclusion for women in Nigeria.

Heconcluded that EFInA is committed to working in with stakeholders, superagents, regulators, and microfinance institutions to grow these initiatives.

Dieistated that in the bid to achieve financial sector development in Nigeria, moreorganizations should focus on driving financial inclusion.

The SANEF Initiative

Givingher remarks, the CEO of the Shared Agent Network Forum, Mrs. Ronke Kuye,highlighted the role of the network and its mandate of enhancing financialactivities in the country.

Describingthe forum as first of its kind, the SANEF CEO stressed that more would be doneacross other geo-political zones, to help recruit more agents to meet theirtarget number.

Shefurther went on to explain the plans and objectives of SANEF in promotingawareness and growth with members of the team travelling across the country tosensitize people on the value of financial services.

Mrs.Kuye assured participants that the feedback from the forum would is documentedand deployed as part of the framework, to enhance financial inclusion in thecountry.

CBN and The Inclusion Imperative

Dr.Paul Oluikpe of the Financial Inclusion Secretariat representing Mr. JosephAttah of the Central Bank of Nigeria emphasized the need to meet the financialinclusion targets that have been set by different institutions.

Supportingthe initiative of SANEF and EFinA, he said there should be greater efforts atenhancing the spread of agents in Nigeria, to enable people to have access tofinancial services.

“Thefocus of mobile money banking is around accessibility, simplicity, choice,usage and diversity. These agents must be near the people”. He said.

Attahnoted that the CBN advances policy formulation through policyoperationalization in a bid to ensure financial inclusion across landscapes inNigeria.

Givinga presentation on SANEF Mrs. Uche Uzoebo said the Shared Agent NetworkExpansion Facilities (SANEF) started as a project in February 2018 andeventually became incorporated as a company in January 2019.

SANEF,according to her, is an intervention to widen and deepen financial accesspoints and services to increase financial inclusion to 80% by 2020.

Speakingon the plans of SANEF, she said they aim to provide support to super-agents,banks and other stakeholders to acquire agents in all the geo-political zones.

Alsoworking with the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement Systems, NIBSS they planto accelerate and simplify the Bank Verification Number enrolment and to engagewith regulatory bodies for favourable policies, and conducive environment forgrowth.

SANEFalso as part of its plans, aims to drive financial literacy and campaignawareness via print, radio, social media, and community engagements, and so on.

Otherareas to be explored include; training super agents, working with stategovernments to reduce levies on the agents, providing basic products,organizing the quarterly forum and work to ensure BVN enrolment.

Digital Inclusiveness

Mr.Gbekeleoluwa Nubi Nigerian Interbank Systems Settlement (NIBSS) in hispresentation gave an update on the BVN enrolment.

Hesaid that BVN enrolment started on February 14, 2014, by Deposit Money Banksand other licensed operators.

Speakingon the EFINA 2016 Survey Report, he informed stakeholders that Nigeria has thehighest proportion of financially excluded bank-able adults amongst 8 Africancountries.

Onthe essence of BVN enrolment, he said it is to drive financial inclusionand tie multiple accounts to one PIN.

Sinceits inception, Nigeria has acquired over 40 million unique individual BVNs, andNIBSS, according to Mr. Nubi, has plans to reach a target of 100 millionregistered BVN by 2024.

Driving GEEP

Fromthe Bank of Industry one of the largest local development banks, Mr. OluchiChiazor, gave insight into the Government Enterprise Empowerment Plan, GEEPthat was created in 2016 solely as a scheme for national intervention which has2.2 million beneficiaries across the six geo-political zones.

Theyhave also been able to create a 1.6 m new mobile wallets. He highlighted data,technology and beneficiaries to be a top priority in the programme. The GEEP,according to him, also made use of people, platform and processes to achieveset objectives.

Givingfurther figures, he stated that there are over 4,000 agents across the country,particularly in South West who make up 1,200 of that number.

Anew service added to their plan is voucher card repayment tool which waslaunched in early 2019.

Byleveraging on agent networks in remuneration, the biggest challenge faced bythe scheme was fraud, which technology was addressing.

Speakingfurther, he said there was a need to innovate and create sustainable solutions,and there was a mandate to start GEEP 2.0, which is a four-year programon national intervention.

Affirmingthat the agent network is a critical part of scaling financial inclusion in thecountry, the operators and people at every service deliverable post areneeded to ensure the success of the program.