FG targets 95% financial inclusion by 2024, says Emefiele

Nigeria plans to achieve 95 per cent financial inclusion by 2024 as envisioned in the revised financial inclusion strategy document.

This was disclosed by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday in Abuja at the 2022 International Financial Inclusion Conference.

Mr. Emefiele urged all stakeholders and development partners to support the initiative as the CBN has already embarked on a number of measures tailored to achieve the set goals.

“I also want to task all stakeholders of financial inclusion in Nigeria to join hands together, work in collaboration and drive implementation to ensure that we achieve 95% financial inclusion as outlined in the new National Financial Inclusion Strategy”, Mr. Emefiele said.

He pointed out that as of 2008, 52.2 per cent of Nigerian adults were financially excluded, which implied that one out of every two adults had no access to financial services.

Mr. Emefiele added that even though Nigeria had a sizeable banked population, the country’s financial inclusion rate was one of the lowest in the sub-region, and “more worrisome was the fact that many adults were financially excluded. Youth, aged 18-35 years, and MSMEs (which employed over 60 per cent of Nigerians), were disproportionately excluded from access to financial products and services”.

Consequently, he recalled that stakeholders undertook the onerous task of driving access to finance for the benefit of the hitherto excluded segments through the National Financial Inclusion Strategy.

“As of end-2020, the financial exclusion rate had reduced to 35.9 per cent. While this remains high when considered as absolute numbers, it is a huge improvement when compared to the position as of 2008. This change did not happen by accident but resulted from the decisive and concerted approach by National Financial Inclusion stakeholders to address key pain points and bottlenecks that were deterring financial inclusion”, Mr. Emefiele stated.

Lending her voice to the essence of financial inclusion, Aisha Ahmad, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Financial System Stability said the significant highlight of the revised financial inclusion strategy is the need to achieve a 95 per cent target by 2024.

She explained that the target was set to demonstrate and communicate to everyone that the nation is very committed to making this happen.

“We had put it that way to demonstrate and to communicate to everyone that we are very committed to making this happen. As you are aware, when you reach for the stars you may hit the sky and this one we are looking a lot at the areas that have gaps.
People in urban areas are more likely to have electronic banking and all of those services. We are looking at people in rural areas, and what we can do to enhance their own financial experience.

“CBN has supported this initiative with the launch of the eNaira, particularly its expansion of the eNaira to include offline solutions. What that means is that the payments don’t need to be online for you to make a transaction. Those that are living in areas that have poor connectivity can still do financial services.

“We are looking at areas like the youth. Compared to the nation’s average, the youths have, I think 11 per cent. So long as the youths are included, there’s a gap and we need to fill that gap as you all know Nigeria is predominantly a youthful population.

“Lastly we’ve had an 8 per cent gender gap, which is on the national average women are 8 per cent less likely to have financial services and it is not just to be included in terms of payment and account, we need to get credit to MSMEs and a lot of small businesses are run by women. For our strategy 3.0, this is like our way of leap-frogging based on everything we have. We have the policies; the technology, collaboration between the regulators and the innovators, and we are going to take all of that and make it happen by 2024 for all Nigerians”, Mrs. Ahmad said.

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Mohammed Musa Bello, who represented President Muhammadu Buhari at the event said the administration understands the impact of Financial Inclusion on economic growth and development and as such, has provided the enabling policy environment for financial inclusion initiatives to yield the expected results.
“For instance, in 2019, I launched the Micro Pension policy which was aimed at deepening pension penetration amongst MSMEs and the informal economy. We also initiated policies for Micro-Insurance and Collective Investment. These initiatives are geared toward providing access to a wide range of financial products and services to the underserved in line with our National Financial Inclusion objective”, President Buhari said.

He added that his administration understands that it would require innovative models to fast-track the attainment of its growth plan, and to that effect, the Federal Executive Council approved and redesignated the Federal Ministry of Communications as the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy in October 2019, in addition to unveiling a National Strategy for Digital Economy in November 2019.

Her Majesty, Queen Maxima of the Netherlands who is also the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate on Inclusive Finance for Development joined the event virtually.

In her address, Her Majesty Queen Maxima urged all the stakeholders to encourage a coordinated approach to tackling financial inclusion, by working together with the CBN and the Federal Government.

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