Nume Ekeghe
The Deputy Governor, Financial System
Stability, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mrs. Aishah Ahmad, yesterday charged
financial technology companies (fintechs) to contribute in the drive to
enhance
financial inclusion in the country.
This is just as the Managing Director,
Ecobank Nigeria Limited, Mr. Patrick Akinwuntan, has disclosed that the
bank has scrapped the USSD charges for its customers.
Ahmad in her keynote address at the
Nigeria Fintech week in Lagos, said fintechs play a major role in
enhancing financial inclusion by providing services at low cost to
consumers.
She said: “Fintech as a tool and as
institutions, would help us meet a number of objectives. Customers would
have greater freedom, wider access at favorable prices and even at zero
prices.”
“The challenge before us shall be to
thrive not survive so that the benefit outweighs the risk. We see
innovation and it is good, but it must be responsible, it must be
inclusive and it must be held accountable.”
She further added: “We having been
trying for many years to lower the cost of deploying services by banks
through many initiatives and some of these disruptions is actually
helping us lower costs. Once more people are included, you would see
better economic inclusion and you can have better growth. “Policy makers
are faced with a number of considerations, a few questions that have no
easy answers and I’ve had this conversation in Nigeria and out of the
country and no one has an answer.
“The first one is the supervisory and
regulatory question. I get text messages everyday asking about new
companies and what they are doing and I’m asked if they are regulated
and the question arises because, there are new companies that are doing
the same things banks are doing but are not being regulated by banks.”
On regulations surrounding fintechs, she said the central bank was working on measures to supervise fintechs.
She said: “All regulatory institutions
including the central bank are faced with developing the framework to
keep up with these technological changes that would retain the
confidence. It is the basic requirement for users of financial
transaction to be sure that that the system is safe and credible. We
also need to think of how we use professionalism is our supervision,
regulatory framework and so on.”
On his part, Akinwuntan said offering USSD at zero cost would enhance financial inclusion nationwide.
He said: “I think it is possible for us
to offer to very Nigerian zero cost for using short codes for financial
services. I know the debate has been on if it is the banks or telcos
charging. But with the opportunity of 200 million Nigerian and trying to
lift Nigerians out of poverty, this is not time to take action.
“Ecobank has taken the decision that it
would be a zero charge for users of our USSD platform going forward. And
this is sustainable because it is about bringing everyone to
participate. The best way to take banking services to every Nigerian is
by making USSD and financial services short code free for everybody and
let the value of the value of the engagement be the value creation. That
way we can get 90 per cent financial inclusion.”
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