Nigeria’s push for financial inclusion, which aims to bridge the wide gap between the banked and unbanked, has seen significant growth buoyed by increased activities of both commercial banks and telecom companies, through mobile money among others.
The value of mobile money transactions in Nigeria increased by 3,454.46% (N4.86tn) in the first four months of 2022 from (N136.85bn) in the corresponding period of 2019 – playing a big part in this huge progress is money agents. In this arena, both banks and telcos are recording high figures in transaction value
One of the big players in the money agents arena, First Bank of Nigeria (FBN), has announced that its agent banking network – Firstmonie Agents has collectively processed transaction volume of over 1 billion, amounting to over 22 trillion Naira.
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This follows a nearly 100,000 increase between 2021 and 2022 in the company’s money agents base.
First Bank said that the number of its Firstmonie agents grew from 86,000 in 2021 to 180,000, covering a total of 772 Local Government Areas in Nigeria presently.
According to the bank, Firstmonie Agents are empowered to reduce the reliance on over-the-counter transactions while providing convenient personalized services. Amongst the services carried out by the Agents include; Account Opening, Cash Deposit, Airtime Purchase, Bills Payment, Withdrawals and Money Transfer
The bank said that Firstmonie Agents have helped to drive financial inclusion in Nigeria bringing financial services closer to the underbanked and unbanked segment of the society, providing convenient banking services that are easily accessible, thereby saving time and travel costs for individuals in the suburbs and remote environments with no access to financial services.
Through various empowerment and reward schemes implemented to put its Firstmonie Agents at an advantage to economically impact their immediate communities whilst importantly having their business sustained, the Bank’s Agent Banking scheme has remained a toast to Nigerians, irrespective of where they are in the country. Amongst these schemes is the Agent Credit – launched in 2020 – which has had the Bank provide credit facilities to the tune of 238 billion naira to its teeming Firstmonie Agents.
Expressing his appreciation to the Firstmonie Agents, Dr. Adesola Adeduntan, CEO, FirstBank said the scheme recorded this stride while saving people the trouble of going long distances to carry out financial transactions.
“since the relaunch of our Agent Banking scheme in 2018, our Firstmonie Agents have played a vital role in bridging the financial inclusion gap in the country, as many more people have been able to undertake various financial and business transactions in cost-effective ways, thereby saving a lot of time and money in traveling over long distances for basic banking services.
“We are delighted by the giant strides of our Firstmonie Agents in promoting financial inclusion and commend them for their efforts in taking banking to the doorsteps of Nigerians – irrespective of where they are – in a very effective way”, he concluded.
More than 42 million Nigerian adults live in rural areas that lack basic banking services, leaving them out of access to basic financial services. This opens a huge gap that financial service providers and mobile network operators are trying to fill using schemes that include money agents.