Stakeholders committed to the National Financial Inclusion in Nigeria are gathered in Abuja to scale up the interventions that would further crash the exclusion rate from 39.5% actualized in 2020.
Important in its meeting would be the launch of the financial dashboard for Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access (EFInA), CEO Isaiah Owolabi, said in a statement
The statement reads in part: “As part of strategic activities in line with the conference, EFInA is scheduled to launch the National Financial Inclusion Dashboard on its website.
According to him: “This tracks the National Financial Inclusion 2020 targets, and will participate in a panel session titled “Deepening digital financial services adoption and usage” to share innovative digital financial inclusion models that has the opportunity to advance the adoption of digital financial services among women, youth, and low-income Nigerians.
“The International Financial Inclusion conference is an opportunity to showcase all innovative strategies we have implemented since the launch of the National Financial Inclusion 2012 strategy to get us to 51% of Nigerians served by the formal financial system,” said Owolabi.
He continued that with over 24 million USD invested to accelerate the impact of financial and economic inclusion interventions in Nigeria as well as contributions to the increased focus on financial inclusion in Nigeria, convening and supporting stakeholders to develop and work toward the implementation of a National Financial Inclusion Strategy.
It has facilitated the inclusion of over 5 million Nigerians have been formally included from this investment (about 2 million women inclusive). More than 35,000 agents have been recruited as a result of these innovation fund investments with more than 8,525 women.
The statement also said the target of reducing the percentage of adult Nigerians that do not have access to financial services from 46.3% in 2010 to 20.0% in 2020.m was still on course even though it is 15% away from the target.
Since the launch of the NFIS, stakeholders have achieved great strides in achieving financial inclusion objectives which have resulted in the exclusion rate dropping from 46.3% in 2010 to 35.9% in 2020. Presently, the financial sector has undergone waves of rapid development through the emergence of the digital economy.
The rapid expansion and ever-increasing diversity of financial services and products deployed within the Fintech ecosystem present significant opportunities to further fast-track the expansion of financial inclusion to a greater number of Nigerians to have access to financial services that would address their needs and enhance their quality of life.
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