In communities across southwestern Nigeria, from the rural areas in Abeokuta to the bustling markets of Lagos, a consistent effort has been unfolding over the past decade. One professional has been bringing people who have long operated outside the banking system into it. Adetorera Obimakinde is her name. She is a banking operations and risk management professional whose career has focused on expanding financial access to underserved groups; market traders, smallholder farmers and students with little prior contact with formal finance.

Rather than working from a distance, Obimakinde spent years moving between towns and states, engaging directly with communities, answering questions, and addressing skepticism about financial institutions. In doing so, she has helped create entry points into the formal economy for people who often saw banking as irrelevant or inaccessible.

“I have worked in different communities, towns and states in the country. Those small consistent efforts you make with people, especially while working in financial inclusion advocacy, made me realize that you could build trust in banking space,” she expressed. “I learnt trust and learnt that people evaluate your competence and your intention.”

An ambition with direction
When Obimakinde entered Nigeria’s banking sector in 2011, she had a mix of uncertainty and drive that is common to many fresh graduates in Nigeria. Although the industry was demanding, she understood that progress would depend on how quickly she could learn, adapt and define what she wanted from the work. “I was bubbling with such youthful exuberance, and I was determined to learn and adapt as much as I could,” she said.

“I was very curious. I wanted to understand how to make banking work for ordinary Nigerians. Yes, there was a common goal among freshers like myself to attain impressive performance targets. I decided to focus on what the work meant in practice.”

Owing to that decision, Obimakinde was better equipped to handle different roles over the years. In operations, she paid attention to how processes affected customers while in product-related work, she pushed for direct engagement with communities the bank had not traditionally reached. In training roles, she focused on practical scenarios people were likely to encounter. Her career has included time in customer-facing roles, product strategy, training and community engagement.

Reaching a milestone
Obimakinde started counting her little wins, from just thumbs up to pats on the back. For her, those were the feathers that adorned her hat. These were courtesy of her roles as a brand ambassador, a product strategist, a community organizer, a trainer, a mentor, and an institutional change-maker.

Her milestone contributions include the Diamond Bank brand campaign, the Keystone Bank community banking awareness programme; the ‘Banking the Unbanked’ village outreach initiative in Ogun, and Oyo, , States; and a multi-year youth financial literacy programme reaching thousands of young Nigerians in Lagos and Ibadan.

These efforts earned her some flowers. She was recognized with the National Youth Council of Nigeria Award of Honour in 2021 as Distinguished Youth Professional of Banking & Commerce. She also received the South West Advancement Award swiftly the following year for Excellence in Financial Leadership & Banking Operations.

Being the face of Diamond Bank
In just one year after starting an exciting new chapter as the credit negotiation officer in Diamond Bank, Obimakinde had already paid her dues. By 2012, she emerged as the face of Diamond Bank, a role that placed her in commerce and culture at a particularly charged moment in the bank’s history. And in 2013, she was also the face.

“As the face of Diamond Bank during one of its growth periods from field work in communities,” she recalled, “I learnt that banking done right is a relationship and not a transaction that we have limited it to be. And relationships are built by showing up consistently, honestly, and where people are.”

During this period, Diamond Bank was making a deliberate and very public bet on the retail market, which was on ordinary Nigerians as customers, on accessibility as a competitive strategy, and on aspiration as a brand value.

“The campaigns were successful because our retail visibility increased greatly. Even customer acquisition numbers in the bank’s target demographics moved in the right direction. The creative work attracted attention and conversation,” she outlined.

But for Obimakinde, the campaign’s significance went beyond marketing metrics. “The most important thing was the feedback from real people,” she told this journalist. “People would stop me in the market, in church, on the street. And they would say ‘That advert. That was the first time I felt like a bank was talking to me.’ That conversation was encouraging. It showed me what was possible when financial institutions decide to make inclusion a genuine value rather than a policy footnote.”

Meanwhile, Olamide Lawal, a corporate communications executive who worked on several of the Diamond Bank campaigns alongside Obimakinde, described the experience of working with her as unusual in the best sense. “Most brand ambassadors show up, do the shoot, and leave. She wanted to understand the strategy behind every campaign, engage with customer research, and push the team to be more authentic.

“She brought intellectual engagement to the role that went well beyond what was required. You could see even then that the work was always going to be about more than visibility for her,” says Lawal.

Supporting Women Who Build Nigeria’s Informal Economy
In the years following her Diamond Bank tenure, Obimakinde dabbled into financial inclusion through a sustained programme of market-level engagement. Executing the Keystone Bank’s community outreach initiative, she developed and championed a programme that brought financial education and banking services directly to market women across multiple states.

The programme’s approach was deliberately different from the standard “market activation” model that Nigerian banks typically deploy which would be a van, a branded tent, a few branded gifts, and a sales team chasing sign-up numbers. “I wanted to explore something different. Community listening sessions first, product pitching never, relationship-building always.

“I vetoed the gift strategy at the first planning meeting. I told Emeka Okafor, our field coordinator who managed the programme’s ground operations, and other teammates that if the only reason an individual opens an account is to get a branded umbrella, they will close it in three months. We want people who open accounts because they understand how it will change their lives. That means we must help them understand. That takes longer. It is worth it,” she recounted the field experience.

According to this banking professional, the programme established “understanding desks” in markets across Lagos, Ogun, and Oyo states respectively, staffed by trained community liaisons who could explain financial products in Yoruba, Pidgin, and Hausa. Sessions were held on market days and evenings to accommodate traders’ schedules. Account-opening processes were simplified for customers without formal employment documentation. Mobile banking demonstrations used actual phones at actual price points that traders could afford.

Banking the Unbanked
Perhaps the most ambitious part of Obimakinde’s inclusion work has been the “Banking the Unbanked” village outreach programme. It was a multi-state initiative tailored to bring formal financial services to communities that commercial banks have historically deemed too remote, too small, or too economically marginal to serve.

The programme’s geographic reach tells its own story about rural communities in South western States in Nigeria connected by dirt roads and organized around agricultural cycles and traditional institutional structures that look nothing like the bureaucratic frameworks formal banking is typically designed for.

Obimakinde admitted that the agent banking model that emerged from this design process was effective. By recruiting and training local community members as banking agents equipped with smartphones, POS terminals, and direct access to bank systems, she noted that the programme created permanent, community-rooted financial access points that continued to function long after the initial outreach team had moved on.

Receiving her flowers
Thanks to her dedication and passion, Obimakinde began to receive her flowers. In 2021, the National Youth Council of Nigeria presented her with the Award of Honour as Distinguished Youth Professional of Banking & Commerce, in recognition of her commitment to hard work and her role as a role model to the youths of South West Nigeria through her career.

Swiftly the following year, she received the South West Advancement Award 2022 for Excellence in Financial Leadership & Banking Operations powered by the South West Advancement Award Lecture Series. The organizers acknowledged her sustained dedication to institutional achievement and community impact.

“I was pouring out my heart into the work. I wanted to make an impact and change the narrative. I did not realize that people were taking note of my efforts. It is truly gratifying to see that little things could get such accolades,” she expressed.