Adeduntan: FirstBank is reducing poverty, deepening financial inclusion through its 31,000 agent network

NM Partners

5 years ago

First Bank Adesola Adeduntan, Global transactions get easier with Firstbank’s Card Offerings, FBNQuest Trustees Marks 40th Anniversary of preserving legacies in Nigeria, Ellah Lakes Plc announces close period for H1 2019 results The Board of Directors of Ellah Lakes Plc has announced that the company would be meeting on the 22nd October 2019 to consider, among other matters, the audited financial statements of the Company for the financial year ended 31 July, 2019. The Company also announced the commencement of a closed period with effect from 7 October 2019, until 24 hours after the Company’s Audited Financial Statements is filed with The Exchange. Top executives, directors, advisers, and many others at Ellah Lakes Plc have been barred from trading in the company’s shares ahead of the meeting of board of directors of Ellah Lakes. This was disclosed in a notification which was sent to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). https://www.nse.com.ng/Financial_NewsDocs/27720_ELLAH_LAKES_PLC._CORPORATE_ACTIONS_OCTOBER_2019.pdf The announcement is in line with rule 17.18 of Part 2 (Issuer’s Rules) of the NSE’s Rule Book (2015) which states that, “The period of closure shall be effective from fifteen (15) days prior to the date of any meeting of the Board of Directors proposed to be held to consider any of the matters referred to above or the date of circulation of agenda papers pertaining to any of the matters referred to above, whichever is earlier, up to twenty-four hours after the price-sensitive information is submitted to the Exchange. The trading window shall thereafter be opened. Every issuer shall notify the Exchange in advance of the commencement of each closed period.” Why this matters: The close period will allow the board to consider the company’s unaudited financial statements for the third quarter. Other company issues will also be discussed during the meeting of the Board of Directors. What is a close period? A close period is a period before the release of a company’s result or financial statement when of course, those with sensitive information are not allowed to trade on the stock. These individuals may include company directors, audit committee members, persons discharging managerial responsibility, employees and consultants with sensitive information. About the company: Ellah Lakes Plc is a fish farming company., FBN processed 237 million transactions in two weeks, amid COVID-19 lockdown, First Bank Holdings declares a Profit after Tax of N26 billion in Q1 2020

In its quest to deepen financial inclusion, FirstBank is channelling its resources to reach those at the bottom of the pyramid through its agency banking. The tier-one bank has over 31,000 agents spread across Nigeria with 9,000 assigned to provide financial services to the highly excluded Northern region.

According to Adesola Adeduntan, the MD/CEO, First Bank of Nigeria Limited, the bank took it upon itself as part of their strategic plan to be the bank that can be the right partner to the CBN and the government by helping to achieve the right social impact.

“If there is that bank on ground to help the country to address the seeming geographical gap in terms of financial inclusion, it is FirstBank, because we are already doing a lot,” Adeduntan said.

With over 125 years of unbroken existence in Nigeria, the lender has the largest branch network in Nigeria with over 750 branches spread across the country. Nigeria has an exclusion rate of 36.8% as at December 2018; this translates to about 36.6 million Nigerian adults who are not included in the formal financial net.

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The Central Bank of Nigeria plans to ensure it drive that number to 20% by the year 2020. But with less than five months to the deadline, the regulator has about 16.8% exclusion gap.

“So with over 31,000 agents and 750 branches spread across all the LGAs in Nigeria, FirstBank is indeed a frontrunner at not just providing banking to all Nigerians but importantly improving their respective businesses and developing the Nigerian economy,” Adeduntan noted.

According to Emeka Onwuka, CEO, Parkway Project, a Lagos-based Fintech company known for its popular ReadyCash product, when it comes to financial inclusion, the distribution is really “where we have the problem.”

“It is not about wallet rather it is about the touchpoint where people can actually go and have access,” Onwuka added. In January 2019, the central bank unveiled a revised version of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) in which it projected that it will enrol about 500,000 mobile money/bank agents available to serve about 105 million adult Nigerians by the year 2020. The figure translates to about 476 agents per 100,000 adults.

Less than five months to the projected deadline, Nigeria’s financial institutions have however enrolled a joint 65,753 mobile agents, data obtained from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) showed.

This is 86.85% less than the 500,000 mobile agents which are going to serve about 105 million adult Nigerians. If the industry regulator is to meet the target by 2020, it would have to enrol about 434,247 agents in five months.

According to data by EFInA, a huge population of Nigerian adult still lack access to financial products and services. The number is however highest in the northern part of the country.

Compared to other regions of Africa’s most populous nation, the northern part of the country reported more unbanked people owing to high illiteracy level, the insurgency in some parts of the region coupled with high poverty rate, as compiled from BusinessDay survey.

“Currently we have up to 9,000 agents specifically in the northern part of the country and the same thing goes for the statistics of our ATM,” Adeduntan said.

By Okafor Endurance