The importance of financial inclusion is derived from the promise it holds as a tool for economic development, particularly in the areas of poverty reduction, employment generation, wealth creation and improving welfare and general standard of living. However, a survey conducted in Nigeria in 2008 by a development finance organisation, Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access (EFInA), revealed that about 53.0 per cent of adults in the country were still excluded from financial services.
Despite this, the global pursuit of financial inclusion as a vehicle for economic development had a positive effect in Nigeria as the exclusion rate reduced from 53.0 per cent in 2008 to 46.3 per cent in 2010.
Encouraged by the positive development, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in collaboration with stakeholders launched the National Financial Inclusion Strategy on 23rd October, 2012, aimed at further reducing the exclusion rate to 20% by 2020. The CBN’s other stakeholders are: Deposit Money Banks, Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, licensed Mobile Money Operators and Shared Agents with the primary objective of accelerating financial inclusion in Nigeria. They all jointly formed Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility (SANEF). Specifically, adult Nigerians with access to payment services will increase from 21.6 per cent in 2010 to 70 per cent in 2020, while those with access to savings should increase from 24.0 to 60 per cent; and credit from 2 to 40 per cent, insurance from 1 to 40 per cent and pensions from 5 to 40 per cent within the same period. The channels for delivering the above financial services were equally targeted to improve, with DMB branches targeted to increase from 6.8 units per 100,000 adults in 2010 to 7.6 units per 100,000 adults in 2020, Microfinance Bank (MFB) branches to increase from 2.9 units to 5.5 units; ATMs from 11.8 units to 203.6 units, POS from 13.3 units to 850 units, mobile agents from 0 to 62 units, all per 100,000 adults between 2010 and 2020. The targets were based on bench-marking exercise carried out with peer countries, while also taking into consideration critical growth factors in the Nigerian environment.
The major tools for driving the strategy include agent banking. Agent banking Agent banking has been identified as one of the key influencers to drive mass markets to formal financial services as they enable customers to cash in, cash out, make payments or conduct other financial transactions without necessarily having to go through the traditional brick and mortar channels. The success of agent banking, according to a report by EFInA, is dependent on many factors, but significant among them is agent management. A well-managed agent network can help providers build brand awareness, educate customers and meet system-wide liquidity demands, all of which build confidence among users in a service that has low awareness. On the other hand, a poorly managed agent network, by contrast, is characterised by widespread low quality customer experiences, which in turn erodes trust and drives away business. SANEF has been sensitising operators of agent banking across the country on the need for them to take their operations to the next level.
In Abuja, SANEF and other stakeholders recently held a forum for operators of agent banking in the North Central. ‘80% financial inclusion target possible by 2020’ Nigeria will meet the 80 per cent financial inclusion target by 2020 ending, some experts in the financial sector have predicted. Speaking at the Financial Services Agents Forum in Abuja, officials of SANEF, EFInA and CBN said millions of low income and unserved Nigerians would have financial access by the end of 2019. The forum, which was jointly organised by SANEF and EFInA, with the support of CBN, had hundreds of agency banking operators from across the country in attendance. The Head of Financial Inclusion Secretariat of the CBN, Joseph Attah, who was represented by an official from the bank, Mr. Stephen Abore, said, “To spur all stakeholders to action and engineer a measurable path towards achievement, the financial inclusion secretariat has outlined a number of workable assumptions around SANEF’s target of 500,000 agents by 2020. “Considering the fact that SANEF currently has over 100,000 agents in 2019; if each of these agents signs on 6.9 accounts per month; that would translate to 83 accounts per year, and then cumulating to 8.3 million accounts by the end of 2019, thus precisely fulfilling our 2019 target of including 8.3 million people for this year.” Attah said although 36.6 million Nigerians were still without access to financial services, the CBN and other stakeholders were making serious effort to reduce this number drastically.
SANEF’s Head of Distribution and Engagement, Mrs. Uche Uzoebo, said thousands of agents were being signed-in every day to drive the financial inclusion. Mrs. Uzoebo said stakeholders in the financial sector were jointly working to bring in more rural dwellers on board across the country, noting that when this is done, poverty would be reduced and the country’s GDP would be increased. She reiterated the commitment of the body towards meeting the target, saying the organisation was on track to achieving the target that was given to it by CBN as it currently had more than 160,000 agents. According to her, the company would be working together with the super agents, as well as bring in more agents to drive and ensure financial inclusion in the country. She said banks were not usually sited in rural areas and that it was important to have financial representatives in form of agents in all the areas banks could not have their branches in order to achieve the financial inclusion rate of 80 per cent by 2020. She added that, “In addition to all of these efforts towards driving financial inclusion, we ensure there are training programmes for the agents, financial literacy and campaign awareness, technology platforms that will enable everyone that wants to open an account with any agent bank outlet.” She said wherever SANEF sign was, it was safe for customers to go there to open an account, do BVN enrolment, make transfers, cash in and cash out transactions. “Also the applications can be used to use various products such as, cash in cash out. We are going to make arrangements for basic products,” she added. On his part, EFInA’s Programme Specialist (Agent Network), Henry Chukwu, said 63.2 per cent of the 80 per cent financial inclusion target had been achieved.
https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/how-sanef-drive-financial-inclusion-through-agent-banking.html
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