Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has said that the CBN’s 20 per cent financial exclusion target by 2020 was on course. He this during a meeting with the United Nation’s Special Advocate on Inclusive Finance for Development, the Queen of Netherlands, HRM Maxima of the Netherlands, when she visited the apex bank corporate head office in Abuja,.
Emefiele said that the apex bank launched the Financial Inclusion Strategy on October 12, 2012 with a target to reach 20 per cent Exclusion Rate by 2010 and had taken steps towards achieving that target. He said “Towards this, the bank introduced a number of initiatives, prominent among which are the Agent Banking Framework, a Credit Bureau and Credit Scoring System, Know Your Customer, National Collateral Registry , SMEs Borrowers Programme, National Financial Literacy and Consumer Protection Framework.
“We have moved from 46. 3 per cent Exclusion Rate, in 2010 to 41.6 per cent in 2016. To achieve 20 per cent Exclusion Rate by 2020 , we are currently focusing on the following areas: prioritising our interventions and creating awareness to ensure patronage, incorporating non-interest financial services into the CBN intervention programmes, and mobilising banks that offer such products for greater outreach and impact, massively rolling out agent banking networks and creating massive awareness for adoption and propagating digital financial services as alternative channels for reaching remote areas.
“In addition, the National Financial Inclusion Strategy is being reviewed for greater effectiveness and impact, with stakeholders sufficiently mobilized to participate.
“Yes, we have moved from 46.3 to 41 in bin 2016. We consider this as a modest achievement and know that we have a lot of work to do to move to 20 per cent Exclusion by 2020 but I can assure you that we are focused on this.”
However, Mr. Emefiele said that the Nigerian monetary authorities were being cautious in the massive deployment of digital financial services to avoid unnecessary risks.
“in Nigeria, we have adopted the bank-led approach to mobile money, whereas a couple of people have advocated the telecommunications companies –led approach as is the case in Kenya and where penetration has been excellent.
“We believe that Nigeria must be treated differently. Nigeria is a population of 180 million population, the largest population, the largest economy in Africa. We believe that for us to adopted a telecom-led approach presents certain risks and we as regulators must be sure that those risks of financial loss can be mitigated.”
In her remarks, Queen Maxima said that the risks the CBN feared had been addressed internationally and that she would support the efforts of Nigeria in making massive digital financial services a reality in the country. A robust national bio data, she said, would be useful for the adoption of the digital financial services being advocated and that Nigeria should key into the global development.
