The Business Manager Africa, Software Group, Mr. Joseph Agyeman- Badu has stated that the expensive specified devices to register Bank Verification Number (BVN) remains a major obstacle to growing agency banking in the country.
Agyeman- Badu, who has successfully implemented various agency banking solutions in over 65 countries said this in an interview with THISDAY on the sidelines of Software Group’s workshop on Digital Financing Services and Financial Inclusion in Lagos Wednesday.
Responding to a question on what regulations that needs to be put in place to enhance agency banking to capture more of the unbanked population, he said: “Technology-wise, I think everything is in place. The only challenge I see especially getting into the very remote areas is the BVN policy that is in place.
“For BVN, there are some special devices that you have to use to get your BVN from NIBBS and the central bank. “The devices are quiet expensive so you can imagine if someone has 100 agents and has to get almost each agent one of these devises which would not support it because to breakeven in agency banking usually takes time.
“So that is what I believe is a main challenge hurting agency banking on the regulatory point of view.”
On how to address the problem, he suggested that the regulator can allow partners or solutions from software developers to actually get some of their devices certified.
He added: “We can also transmit the biometric details to whatever database they want us to take it to but when you are specific one the devices that becomes a challenge for us. They should be a bit flexible in terms of the devices that should be used in capturing BVN.” He noted that agency banking would do well in Nigeria because banks do not need to invest in devices anymore.
“They can come out with a mobile application that would replace the devices”, he said. According to him, “this would make it easy to deploy agency banking even to the remote areas. If that is done, agency banking would really rise so that this over 90 million unbanked gap can be closed within a number of years.”
Furthermore he said: “Software Group solutions are here to change the game as we speak. Over a period of time, people actually buy solutions in silos so they have several vendors giving them different solutions and that becomes a problem managing it,” he added.
Source: Thisday
