A financial expert, Oghogho Osula, has said financial inclusion is set to improve access to financial services and contribute to economic growth and wealth creation in the country.
The former Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Coronation Trustee Limited, who made this statement while addressing Capital Market Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CAMCAN), said financial inclusion helps in improving life of the unbanked and under banked
She said apart from savings mobilization, financial inclusion enables people to have access to loans and grow investment leading to growth in wealth, improve social and economic wellbeing as well as bridge inequality.
She said that in Nigeria, as in developing African countries, physical proximity to a branch was the most significant barrier to accessing basic financial services.
Although a lot of progress has been made to ensure that a lot of people are included in financial services, she said there is still inadequate infrastructure to achieve the level of inclusion desired in Nigeria.
She said Nigeria is still having problems of network failure, data band with issues, adding that inadequate security among others affecting financial inclusion in the country.
Available data, according to her showed that estimated seven million financially underserved individuals do not own bank accounts but enjoy limited financial services through informal arrangements such as cooperatives, esusu, adding that only 42 million (42 per cent) of the estimated 100 million adult Nigerians enjoy some form of financial inclusion.
She described financial inclusion as helping greater number of people secure relevant and good quality financial products, which are appropriate, affordable and convenient for the entire adult population, especially the most excluded, the poor, less privileged and women.
Osula said that an inclusive financial sector is characterized by diversity of financial services, the legal and regulatory environments that ensure the integrity of the financial sector and access to financial service for all.
She said Nigeria has a large mobile market, with about 133 million subscribers and a market penetration of around 75 per cent in 2014, according to the Nigeria Communications Commisdion. She said this huge number provides an opportunity to use it in developing easy -to- use technology that can improve access to financial services across the Nigeria mobile financial service platform to bridge the gap.
Comparing Nigeria with other jurisdiction, like United Kingdom, she said a financial inclusion fund of £120 million was set up to help bring about expansion of access to financial inclusion while a financial inclusion taxforce was formerly launched in February 2005 to monitor process and make suitable recommendations. She said that UK government also implement policies, including community investment tax relief scheme to deliberately promote the informal sector.
In Germany, she said, a German Banker Association introduce a voluntary code in 1996 providing for an “everyman” banking transactions. This ensured that financial institutions made access to banking services easy and less cumbersome for the benefit of every member of the community.
