FirstBank Boss Moves to Drive Increased Financial Inclusion

The Deputy Managing Director -designate, FirstBank Nigeria Limited, Gbenga Shobo will be delivering a lecture themed: “Financial Inclusion: Unleashing the Potential in the Informal Sector, at a session on the “Banks of the Future in Africa” conference to take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, as part of efforts to drive financial inclusion,

The event holds between February 17-18, 2016.

A statement quoted Shobo to have pledged that the bank would continue to support initiatives that will drive financial inclusion more specifically in the informal sector.

“As Nigeria’s foremost retail bank and in line with our strategy to drive financial inclusion in the informal sector, FirstBank has created an ecosystem to bank the financially excluded by partnering with government, NGO, and other private sector users to increase usage of our agency banking network and mobile banking offerings to low income earners,” he said.

He further stated that there are sizeable opportunities in the Informal Sector SME’s which have been shut out of the Banking system because Banks can only transact with registered companies. “If these informal sectors SME’s can be brought into the formal sector, there are significant upsides for Banks in Nigeria to grow their loan portfolios”.