If you live in Lagos, Abuja or Port Harcourt, or you reside in any of the other state capitals, you probably take for granted that you actually live in the better of the two worlds that make up Nigeria when it comes to banking. Take Lagos, for example, you would find a bank in almost any corner you turn. You have many streets in business or commercial areas in the city that are lined up by nothing but banks in all their glory and magnificence. If a count is taken, it could be established that there are probably more bank branches in Lagos than any other branded business outlets or branded activity centres – if street stores and religious centres are excluded.
Many people in city centres somehow assume that this situation of banks being in your face in cities is the same reality that prevails in most parts of the country. They have no idea that there are parts of Nigeria, especially the hinterland, where people take the absence of banks for granted the same way city dwellers take the preponderance of bank branches for granted. To get to the nearest bank, people in the hinterland who live this reality every day would have to travel many kilometres to get to their state capitals or some other large towns. These are the people living in the worse of the two worlds you find in Nigeria as far as having bank presence is concerned.
Imagine if the situation were reversed and city dwellers had to travel many kilometres to get to the nearest bank branch where they could do their transactions. It is not unlikely that such a situation would be accompanied by a ballooning of the stress levels in city dwellers, increased road rage on city highways and heightened frustration generally. How would people who spend multiple hours in traffic on a daily basis, work longer than counterparts elsewhere for far less remuneration, enjoy less sleep on their beds and less time with family and loved ones, cope with the additional burden of walking or driving endlessly in search of a bank to do their transactions? How? Just how?
So city dwellers should indeed be thankful for their world. And while at it, they as well as people in the hinterland, who live in the other world, should not be shy to extend appreciation to those working so hard and tirelessly to bridge the gap between the two worlds in Nigeria. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) financial inclusion initiative geared towards bringing the unbanked and underbanked as well as communities in Nigeria’s hinterland into the formal financial ecosystem has been key to efforts to bridge the gap. The CBN’s mandate to ensure the availability of affordable financial products and services to all individuals and groups of people in Nigeria, regardless of location, literacy level, familiarity with technology or accessibility to modern infrastructural facilities, has been wholly embraced, supported and promoted by FirstBank.
FirstBank’s unmatched commitment to financial inclusion is informed by the bank’s undivided focus on making real impact across Nigeria.
“The key strength of our franchise is our ability to
look at gaps in the society and develop products and services that [address
those gaps],” says Adesola Adeduntan, the Chief Executive Officer of the
premier bank in West Africa and the leading financial inclusion services
provider in Nigeria for over 127 years.
“We believe that by significantly working with the
Central Bank to improve the financial inclusion index of the country, we would,
as FirstBank, be assisting [the] country to address poverty, to address hunger,
thereby also promoting security of life and property because when people are
gainfully employed, the implication is that they think less of crime,” he says.
It is therefore not surprising that FirstBank has
driven the financial inclusion initiative much more vigorously than any other
bank in Nigeria, with its Firstmonie Agent channel, which crossed the 100,000
Agents mark a few days ago, being among the bank’s many initiatives to expand
financial access in the country. The 100,000 Agents feat in itself speaks
volumes about the bank’s strides in the financial inclusion space. No other bank
comes anywhere close to FirstBank in terms of number and spread of agents in
their agent banking networks. FirstBank’s Firstmonie Agents and the thousands
of staff they employ are in all the 774 local government areas in Nigeria save
two and, in 2020 alone, processed over 295 million transactions with a total
value of N6.65 trillion and opened more than 196,000 accounts. However, for
FirstBank, it is not about number or competition with others or even being the
largest bank-led network in Africa, but the impact the Firstmonie Agents
channel it is creating, as Adeduntan highlighted above.
Francis
Shobo, Adeduntan’s deputy, agrees, saying FirstBank is looking beyond numbers
and considering impact.
“We are
trying to make those Agents the centre of the financial ecosystem in the
country,” he says.
This
probably explains why Firstmonie Agents are considered by the bank as community
heroes that it is planting all over the nation. And this is the sense one gets
in interviews with Agents and customers across the country.
Aiyetoro
is a riverine community in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State. It has no
banks, according to Stephen Adeleye, a Firstmonie Agent serving Aiyetoro
community. He recounts how Firstmonie has impacted his community. Adeleye says
Firstmonie has provided easy access to banking ensuring that “people in the
community now have this kind of savings habit” – a reference to the growing
savings culture in Aiyetoro. One of his customers, Tina Farodoye, who operates
a grocery store in the community, says Firstmonie has helped her business to
grow. She can now buy her stock in bulk all the way from Lagos where they are
relatively inexpensive (even with transport costs added) compared to her
community, all because she is able to transfer funds through Agent Stephen to
the wholesalers in Lagos. This has improved her business profitability by
increasing the profit margin in her business.
Ephraim
Osinachi is a Firstmonie Agent in Obehie, Asa Ukwa West, Abia State. He serves
customers across all ages, including the very aged, as all customers are
assisted with their transactions, unlike the use of ATM where the customer is
practically on their own. He says market traders take advantage of his presence
in the community to make lodgements at the end of the day’s trade. He and his
staff wait until traders are done at the market (unlike your regular banks
which shut their doors to customers at four o’clock, generally). The advantage
this offers the people is invaluable. He cites a case where a customer’s house
was raided by robbers in their absence and all the robbers could find after
ransacking the entire house was N50 cash and old phones valued at N3,000. His
services are enabling his community to avoid keeping bulk cash at home and the
consequent risk of being robbed and traumatised by men of the underworld.
Orode
Hesse, Firstmonie Agent in Ubeji, Warri South, Delta State is both emphatic and
ecstatic about impact Firstmonie has had on her life. She enthuses that it has
really impacted and empowered her financially and enabled her to empower
others, especially other women. She has six employees, five of whom are female.
So she sees Firstmonie as a business or platform to employ and empower women.
Interestingly, Orode is part of the 26 percent of Firstmonie Agents that are
women, a fact that points to the important role Firstmonie is playing in
driving women economic empowerment.
Abubakar
Aki Bolaji is a Firstmonie Agent along Karishi Road, Orozo in FCT, Abuja. He
points out that the nearest bank to his community is 15km away. He is pleased
that his presence as an Agent in the community has cut out the costs of
transportation his people would have continued to incur in order to access
banking services. His sentiment and delight are shared by the teeming customers
he serves. This situation is very common in the North given its landmass and the
dispersed nature of human settlements. Adeduntan relates how a senior
government official in Jigawa State highlighted how important the presence of
Firstmonie Agents was when he informed him that all across a 70km stretch from
Gumel, where there was the branch of a bank, there were no banks anywhere in
sight. All he saw were at least two Firstmonie Agents in that long stretch of
70km, no banks. Without those two Agents, all the people in the settlements
along that 70km stretch would be without access to banking services.
Another
Firstmonie Agent, Mohammed Tatari, serving Tudun Wada in Bununu, Bauchi State,
says his services are helping to drive commerce in his community as traders are
now able to transfer funds to the wholesalers elsewhere from whom they buy. His
services are helping traders to avoid carrying large cash with them given the
dire security situation. He noted that the people used to travel elsewhere just
to access banking service. His presence has changed all that now. He concludes
that Firstmonie is changing his community (for good). One woman who would agree
with him is Halima, a housewife and petty trader in the outskirts of Abuja. She
discovered Firstmonie through her co-tenant, during the recent lockdown due to
COVID-19, and was excited that she could access funds at the Firstmonie Agent
outlet close to her and send money to her mother in far away, Maiduguri in
Borno State. She had been unable to move to Garki where her bank branch was
because of the lockdown.
Besides
ensuring that individuals in the suburbs do not have to travel for long hours
to the city for their banking activities, Firstmonie Agents are also bridging
the gap between the tech-savvy and the low-literacy clients as the Agent
network represents the convenient and comfortable alternative for customers
that are unacquainted with sophisticated digital channels. And as Firstmonie
Agents give their best, FirstBank, on its part, has been doing everything to
encourage the Agents. In its inaugural Firstmonie Agent Banking Awards, FirstBank
rewarded 37 leading Agents that have promoted financial inclusion in the
country. Thirty-one (31) Agents each won the sum of N250,000 at the state level
while five Agents won the sum of N1,000,000 at the regional level. At the
national level, the grand prize of N2,500,000 was won by Zayyanu Hassan Ishaq,
an Agent from Abuja (North Central), who described it as a miracle and noted
that it would spur him to work harder.
As further
encouragement and to promote the business activities of Firstmonie Agents, the
bank announced the provision of loan facilities of up to N1,000,000 to the
Agents. This new credit scheme, which they can access 24 hours a day, can be
processed in less than two minutes. The scheme means more empowerment and
business expansion for Firstmonie Agents. And the expansion can go beyond
Nigeria as Adeduntan says FirstBank is looking beyond Nigeria to other African
countries where FirstBank operates, like Ghana and DRC – a country with over 80
million people – to promote financial inclusion and begin to address poverty on
the African continent through the Firstmonie platform.
