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AMMAN seeks role in SANEF for growth

By Chike Onwuegbuchi
16 November 2018   |   4:09 am
Worried by the identified challenge of recruitment of agents without transactions in the Central Bank of Nigeria and Bankers’ committee shared agents network expansion initiative...

Victor Olojo

Worried by the identified challenge of recruitment of agents without transactions in the Central Bank of Nigeria and Bankers’ committee shared agents network expansion initiative(SANEF), Association of Mobile Money Agents in Nigeria (AMMAN) has urged CBN to collaborate with her to address the problem.

Victor Olojo, president, AMMAN, decried none involvement of their association in SANEF initiative which according to him is why agents without scale were recruited in the scheme.

“We think that it is a very laudable idea, but more needs to be done one specific thing we have been asking those spearhead it is that an association like AMMAN should be brought in because we are on the field and understands the dynamics of the operation in rural areas and they are in their board rooms in Victoria Island and Abuja, they don’t know what obtains in the market. We believe that if AMMAN is brought into the system, we will be able to share real time experiences and challenges and see how the objectives can be achieved.

“There is fund attached to SANEF we told the core stakeholders that we as Association knows the agents who are doing well, we know agents that can bring in volume of transaction so they must ensure they carry us along, without that there will continue to be problem in the system.

Because the banks want to present numbers the say we have agents but are those agents bringing scale or presence? In AMMAN we are bold to say that 90 percent of our agents are doing amazing well.

“Mobile money agents have been effective in driving financial inclusion in Nigeria by delivering what the banks cannot deliver. Mobile money agents have come as better alternative to regular banking system.

What that means is that it is expensive setting up a bank branch in remote areas but with agents which is low cost and easy penetration it is easy to set up bank accounts seamlessly. In terms of financial inclusions agents have done very well in delivering the services to people,” he said.

Olajo spoke at the 3rd AMMAN conference held in Lagos last week, noted that his association is complementing the efforts of CBN in financial inclusion by launching AMMAN Financial Inclusion Force (AFIF).

“The idea behind this is to ensure that we complement the objective of SANEF spearheaded by CBN, we have identified a lag in capacity building, empowerment and also funding. We have set up this arm to empower our members who are aggregators who are able to recruit agents in the villages. For instance, if you are an agent and you have up to five agents under you, we will help you by training those agents for them to perform better and how to help you to increase the number to 10 and later 20 agents,” he added.

He attributed harassment by law enforce agents as one of the numerous challenges AMMAN members are facing across the country.

“We have a number of challenges these include harassment by law enforcement agents, we have issues of identity thief and funding, collaboration with stakeholders that is why we are having conferences like this so that all these problems can be address.

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