Worried about the cut off from basic financial services due to poor infrastructure and low digital literacy in Nigeria rural communities, Head of Marketing at Refuge Mortgage Bank, Oluyemi Ashade has unveiled a Mobile Financial Literacy Labs to address this challenge.

Ashade, also the District President of Lions Club International, is among those rethinking how inclusion can work beyond the conventional brick-and-mortar model.

“We’re finally able to serve Nigeria’s unbanked majority with mobile banking and AI-driven credit scoring. Financial inclusion doesn’t mean opening branches on every street. It means designing systems that reflect how people actually live and earn,” he said.

At the centre of Ashade’s model is a hybrid strategy combining tech-based tools with community-based education. The Mobile Financial Literacy Labs delivers training directly to people’s phones using WhatsApp and USSD modules. According to figures shared by his team, the initiative has reached over 5,000 participants across 15 states.

The programme also incorporates alternative credit scoring, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) models to evaluate non-traditional data for loan approvals.

The approach, Ashade explained, has reduced defaults by 22 per cent while expanding access to borrowers who were previously shut out of the formal lending space.

In areas where traditional banks have been slow to expand, Ashade’s team has also established local agent networks to handle basic transactions like deposits and withdrawals.

One of the communities where these interventions have been piloted is Olowora, in Lagos. Before the programme’s rollout, only about 12 per cent of residents held formal bank accounts. That figure has since risen to 82 per cent.

Several women’s cooperatives that once relied solely on informal savings groups have now transitioned to formal banking. A number of motorcycle taxi operators have also secured loans for vehicle upgrades through the platform.

For Ashade, the challenge has never just been about access, but about trust and cultural fit. Many rural residents, he said, are sceptical of formal systems they don’t understand or relate to.

“Long distances, unfamiliar processes, and complex paperwork created barriers. People simply didn’t feel banking was for them,” he said.

In response, his model places emphasis on what he calls local trust networks, working with community leaders and integrating existing social groups into the rollout. Interfaces are developed in local languages, and processes are streamlined to reflect the realities of the users. Community agents receive training not just in the technical aspects of banking, but in how to guide first-time users through systems that may feel foreign.