The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced that its concessionary credit facilities have benefited over four million smallholder farmers throughout the country.
CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele made the remarks on Thursday in Abuja at the International Inclusion Conference 2022 (IFIC’ 22), which was themed ‘financial inclusion for all: scaling innovative digital models.’
During the event, the apex bank unveiled seven strategic policy documents aimed at increasing financial inclusion.
The policy documents were unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari, who was represented by Muhammad Bello, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The documents include the revised national financial inclusion strategy (NFIS 3.0), the national strategy leveraging agent networks for women’s financial inclusion, the national fintech strategy, Nigeria financial services maps (NFSMaps), the payment system vision (PSV) 2025, the regtech sandbox framework, and the fintech bridge between the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Central Bank of Egypt.
Emefiele stated at the event that the CBN intends to achieve 95 percent financial inclusion by 2024, as envisioned in the revised financial inclusion strategy document.
“I also want to task all stakeholders of financial inclusion in Nigeria to join hands together, work in collaboration and drive implementation to ensure that we achieve 95 percent financial inclusion as outlined in the new national financial inclusion strategy,” he said.
“Over four million smallholder farmers nationwide have benefitted from concessionary credit facilities that improved the nation’s food output while creating two million jobs.
“All credits to these farmers were disbursed via digital channels, further boosting financial inclusion in rural areas.”
Emefiele said the bank’s focus on leveraging digital innovations to drive financial inclusion was one of the main motivations for the launch of the eNaira, Nigeria’s digital currency.
“To ensure that the eNaira is enabled for financial inclusion, a USSD channel for eNaira was created,” the CBN governor added.
He stated that in 2008, 52.2 percent of Nigerian adults were financially excluded, but that financial inclusion in Nigeria had improved.
“As at the end of 2020 the financial exclusion rate had reduced to 35.9 percent,” Emefiele said.
“While this remains high when considered as absolute numbers, it is a huge improvement when compared to the position as at 2008 of 52.2 percent.”
