Stakeholders in the monetary industry have been urged to leverage technology in ensuring financial inclusion in the country.
Executive Director, SystemSpecs, Deremi Atanda, who made the call during a presentation on: “Leveraging technology for financial inclusion,” at the 2018 National
Insurance Conference, in Abuja, stressed the need to key into the new financial inclusion strategy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
He added that technology has demonstrated a strong potential to help improve access to and quality of financial services for the unbanked and under-banked.
The apex Bank had disclosed recently that the country “is not on track to meet the 2020 targets set out in the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) of 2012, hence a review of the strategy.”
Atanda warned that if the financial institutions, specifically the insurance companies, refused to exploit the advantages of technology, Nigeria might not achieve its NFIS targets in the nearest future.
He identified greater technology collaboration between stakeholders, disruption of value chain, focus on smart data, open platform and APIS, and the use of alternative information as ways financial institutions can use technology to ensure that all households irrespective of income level have access to financial services.
Atanda said: “The issue of financial inclusion is a national task, and the CBN has acted commendable in making sure that this national objective is achieved.
CBN has been able to identify the critical needs for them to engage more stakeholders and working to achieve financial inclusion should be escalated beyond a single agency.
“Technology should be one of the key areas of financial economy strategy because it plays a great role.
We need to make sure it features prominently on our economy agenda because the poverty rate is worrisome.
“By leveraging technology, many insurance companies will change the way they are presented. It will change the point of transaction.
The recent CBN report reveals that we are getting it wrong in the area of Automated Teller Machines (ATM), and Point of Sale (POS) system.
This shows that we need to change direction.”
http://guardian.ng/technology/leverage-technology-to-drive-financial-inclusion-in-nigeria/
