Yemisi Izuora
First Bank of Nigeria Limited, is holding a Joint Seminar with sub-Saharan African Banking and Telecom Regulators to promote financial inclusion through digital innovations in sub-Saharan Africa.
The event, which was held in Lagos recently, was themed “Advancing ePayment and
Digital Innovations in Africa- Evolution of Nigeria’s Payment Systems”.
The seminar was organised to provide key officers of regulatory authorities in these
Markets – notably locations with FirstBank subsidiaries; Ghana, Senegal, DRC,
Gambia, Sierra Leone and Guinea – a platform to get familiar with developments
in the Nigerian Payment Systems and Digital Products Industry thereon replicating
and adopting the learnings from the seminar with a view to bolster the finance
industry in their respective countries.
Key players and regulators in the finance and digital banking ecosystem at the
event included: Agada Apochi, Managing Director/CEO, Unified Payment Services Ltd;
Mike Ogbalu, CEO, Verve International; Musa Jimoh, Deputy Director, Payments
System Policy and Oversight, Central Bank of Nigeria; Premier Oiwoh, Managing
Director, NIBSS; Bashirat Odunewu, Group Executive, International Banking Group,
FirstBank and Adesola Adeduntan, CEO, First Bank of Nigeria Limited amongst
others.
Speaking on FirstBank’s leading role in promoting digital banking and financial
inclusion across the country, Adeduntan said, “FirstBank by any measure has been
a success story as far as digital banking is concerned. Today, we have more than
8.5 million people on our USSD *894# banking platform, more than 3 million people
on our Firstmobile platform. We are the only Bank in Nigeria that has issued cards
in excess of 10 million in Nigeria. When you are looking at that institution that has
achieved a lot in terms of digital payment, it is FirstBank. More than 80% of our
transactions are carried out on our digital channels.”
“We have been very aggressive with our FirstBank Agent Banking network. Today
we have over 27000 agents spread across the nooks and crannies of the country,
indeed second to none as far as Nigeria is country. At FirstBank, the economic growth
and development of our host communities is important to us; assisting Nigeria and
the continent at large address poverty is very imperative and that is why for us
financial inclusion is a key part of our business strategy.” he concluded.