Software Group’s Chief Executive Officer, Africa and Middle East, Connor Hanan, says agent banking can bridge the gender and rural-urban gaps to ensure financial inclusion for more unbanked Nigerians.
Hanan speaking yesterday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Lagos, said Nigeria’s huge population presents an opportunity for expansion of financial services to over 38 million unbanked Nigerian adults.
Agent banking is the conduct of banking business on behalf of a financial institution, through an agent, using various service delivery channels.
Such channels include the use of mobile phones, POS (point-of–sale) terminals, card readers and other technology for processing real time transactions.
“Increasing shared prosperity, eradicating inequality and extreme poverty would be attainable with the financial inclusion of more unbanked individuals, especially women,” he said.
According to him, agency banking transactions increased from 3% of the country’s transactions to 19% in a single year, even as the growth was below the 70% National Financial Inclusion Strategy target expected in 2020.
Increasing shared prosperity, eradicating inequality and extreme poverty would be attainable with the financial inclusion of more unbanked individuals, especially women.
He said to enhance growth; financial institutions were deploying innovative technology through agency banking to deliver their services to more individuals in hard-to-reach communities.
There are more opportunities in the agency banking space that Nigeria can leverage beyond the current cash-in cash-out service, he said, adding that it should be extended to facilitate lending, health insurance, payment and registration for different services, among others.
Hanan said the platform had created employment opportunities for many small-scale businesses and aided their contributions to the gross domestic product (GDP).
He noted that Software Group recently launched a fast-track agency banking software to assist banks expand their reach, speed and competitive cost, saying that the solution would deepen agency banking growth and accelerate Nigeria’s financial inclusion targets. (NAN)
