Worried by the glaring fact that the nation may not achieve its financial inclusion target of ensuring 80% of the adult population are financially served before 2020 from 46.3% in 2010, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) the microfinance banks across the country to engage in aggressively grow their customer base henceforth.
This, the bank said, was one of the resolutions at a recently held stakeholders meeting on the Revised National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS 2.0) involving all financial services providers in the six geo-political zones attended by representatives of MFBs in the first half of the year.
One of the major resolutions at the forum to expose stakeholders to the detailed provisions of the NFIS 2.0 and their expected roles and responsibilities in the agenda, according to a circular to all MFBs by Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, Director, Other Financial Institutions Supervision Department of the CBN, was a target of 64 new customer per month for each MFB branch.
This, the CBN said, will sum up to 774 new bank customers per branch, to be measured by the number of new Bank Verification Number (BVN) registration yearly.
If implemented faithfully, the CBN expects, according to the letter referenced: OFI/DIR/DOC/GEN/020/252, and titled: “letter to all MFBs on the revised national financial inclusion targets, that the nation could yet achieve “the overarching target of 80% financial inclusion by the year 2020.”
The letter acknowledged none-the-less that over the last six years of implementing the strategy, MFBs have contributed towards the realization of the stated objective, noting that as the end of 2018, 63.2% or 63m adult Nigerian were financially served. This, he continued, leaves an inclusion gap of 36.8% or 36.6m adult Nigerian that need to be included.
“Given the short time to the end of the target date, it has become expedient for all stakeholders to double efforts towards the realization of the targeted 80% inclusion rate,” the apex bank added.