Northern states are set to experience financial inclusion as ten licensed Mobile Money Operators and Super Agents are expected to deploy financial services agents’ outlets immediately in underserved urban and rural areas in Nigeria, with more concentration in the Northern states where financial exclusion is at its peak.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Commercial Banks, Licensed Mobile Money Operators and Super Agents publicly declared on Tuesday that they have agreed to finance the expansion of a Shared Agent Network to deepen financial inclusion.
The Chairman of the Body of Bank CEO, Commenting on the Shared Agent Network Expansion programme, Mr. Herbert Wigwe, CEO of Access Bank Plc has said that the “agreement reflects our commitment to aggressively pursue the CBN 2020 Financial Inclusion target in an integrated way with minimal systemic risk to the financial system. This initiative will also generate over 500,000 new jobs over the next two years.
The agreement includes an aggressive rollout of 500,000 agent networks in the period of 24 months to provide rudimentary financial services, such as Cash-in, Cash-out, Funds Transfer, Bill Payments, Airtime purchase, government disbursements and remote enrollment on BMS Infrastructure (BVN) to an estimated 50 million Nigerians that are currently under-banked or unbanked.
The accredited CBN-Bankers Committees’ roll-out ratio is as follows: North-East 30%; North-West 30%; North-Central 20%; South-South 7.5%; South-East 7.5%; and South-West 5%. Some of the prequalified CBN Licensed operators to include Capricorn Digital Limited, Cellulant Nigeria Limited, eTranzact Limited, Innovectives Limited, Inlaks Limited, Interswitch Financial Inclusion Services Limited, Paga Tech Limited and Unified Payments Nigeria Plc.
