The new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of EFInA, Foyinsolami Akinjayeju has stated that leading the organisation at this pivotal moment presents an extraordinary opportunity to drive lasting change in Nigeria’s financial ecosystem.

Speaking in a chat with The Guardian,  she emphasised that while financial inclusion in Nigeria has progressed significantly, particularly in terms of access to formal payment systems, there is still a crucial need to close the remaining gaps and ensure that financial services are not only available but also empower individuals, families, and entire communities.

She highlighted that EFInA’s role extends beyond enhancing access to financial services; the organisation is actively working to build a foundation for economic resilience, equipping Nigerians with the tools they need to escape poverty and create sustainable livelihoods.

“With a visionary leadership team, a vibrant board, and a committed workforce, she expressed confidence in EFInA’s ability to make a tangible impact in the lives of millions.”

Outlining her top priorities, the EFInA CEO reaffirmed her commitment to deepening financial inclusion, particularly for marginalized groups, including women, youth, small business owners, and rural populations in the northern regions.

She stressed that EFInA is focused on meeting—and exceeding—the target of 80 per cent formal financial inclusion.

According to her, “The goal is to ensure that financial services are not only accessible but also tailored to the specific needs of these underserved segments, in alignment with EFInA’s mission to make financial services available to all Nigerians, irrespective of their location or economic status.

On EFInA’s  priority to foster economic empowerment beyond access, she noted that access alone, is not enough, adding that financial inclusion must go beyond simply providing accounts to empowering individuals to use financial services in a way that strengthens their financial resilience.

She said her vision is to create pathways that enable people to save, invest, plan for their futures, and recover quickly from financial shocks.
She added “This approach is central to EFInA’s refreshed strategic direction, which sees economic empowerment as the true goal of financial inclusion. By promoting financial literacy, fostering savings culture, and enabling access to credit, EFInA aims to ensure that Nigerians are not just financially included but are able to build wealth and secure their futures.

Speaking on strengthening partnerships and collaboration, Akinjayeju said collaboration remains at the core of EFInA’s approach.

She acknowledged that financial inclusion is a multi-stakeholder effort that requires strong partnerships between the public and private sectors, as well as engagement with civil society.

By leveraging collective expertise, resources, and innovation, EFInA seeks to accelerate progress and ensure that no Nigerian is left behind.

She reiterated the organisation’s commitment to working with policymakers, financial service providers, and regulators to create an inclusive financial ecosystem that serves the needs of all citizens.

On the biggest challenges in closing regional financial gaps, the EFInA boss said despite progress in reducing Nigeria’s overall financial exclusion rate from 32 per cent in 2020 to 26 per cent in 2023, significant regional disparities remain.

She pointed out that financial exclusion rates in the Northeast and Northwest stand at 38 per cent and 47 per cent, respectively, far higher than in the Southwest and South-South regions, where exclusion rates are as low as 5 per cent and 10 per cent.

She identified several barriers that have contributed to these regional gaps, including poor infrastructure, unreliable electricity, weak internet connectivity, low smartphone penetration, security challenges, and cultural and religious constraints, noting that digital financial services, while promising, are hindered by limited digital literacy and poor internet access in these regions.

To address these challenges, Akinjayeju disclosed that EFInA is prioritising interventions such as expanding fintech and mobile banking services, developing financial literacy programs tailored to regional needs, and advocating for improved infrastructure and security.

According to her, by implementing these targeted solutions, EFInA aims to bridge the financial inclusion gap and ensure equitable access to financial services across Nigeria.

Concerning empowering MSMEs through financial access, the CEO stated categorically that Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are the backbone of Nigeria’s economy, but however decried that many struggle with limited access to credit and financial products.

Recognising this challenge, she said EFInA has taken a data-driven approach to understanding the barriers MSMEs face and developing evidence-based solutions to support them.

The CEO highlighted EFInA’s role in conducting research to generate insights that inform policy decisions and product development.

According to her, by partnering with financial institutions, fintech companies, and regulators, EFInA has helped co-design targeted financial products that cater to the specific needs of small business owners.

“Through Innovation Support Program, EFInA has supported fintech startups like Cowrywise and Esusu Africa in developing scalable financial solutions. “Additionally, the organisation has collaborated with Credit Registry to integrate gender-disaggregated data, helping to bridge the credit gap for women entrepreneurs.

“EFInA has also played a key role in shaping policies such as the Central Bank of Nigeria’s agent banking guidelines and the framework for advancing women’s financial inclusion”, she added.

When asked how  trust in financial institutions can be improved, especially among low-income earners, the EFInA  boss pointed out that trust is fundamental to financial inclusion, yet many low-income Nigerians remain skeptical of formal financial institutions. The EFInA CEO noted that this lack of trust stems from issues such as hidden fees, complex financial products, and poor customer service.

To restore confidence, she emphasised the need for financial institutions to simplify their products, provide clear and transparent information, and offer customer-friendly services.

She advocated for financial literacy programs that educate consumers about their rights and responsibilities, as well as policies that ensure fair treatment of low-income customers.

Additionally, she stressed the importance of making financial services more accessible and inclusive, particularly for those without formal identification or a steady income.

By addressing these trust issues, EFInA aims to build a more inclusive financial ecosystem where all Nigerians feel secure in using financial services.

On how EFInA would ensure that digital finance reaches underserved populations, Akinjayeju said digital financial services are expanding rapidly, with non-bank financial players, particularly fintech companies, driving much of the growth in formal financial inclusion.

The CEO cited EFInA’s latest survey, which showed that the use of financial service agents has surged from 4 per cent in 2018 to 54 per cent in 2023, benefiting 11 million previously excluded Nigerians.

However, she noted that aa significant gaps remain, particularly in rural areas.”Through EFInA’s Inclusion for All Initiative (I4ALL), the organization is leveraging data to better understand the needs of excluded populations and advocate for policies that expand digital financial services.”

The CEO also mentioned EFInA’s ongoing collaboration with stakeholders to integrate national identification systems with digital finance, ensuring that more Nigerians can seamlessly access financial services.

“Despite these gains, there are still significant gaps for some communities. Through our Inclusion for All Initiative (I4ALL), we dimension credible demand-side data to give us a clear sense of who they are, where they are, what they do and the primary barriers they encounter.

“These data driven insights allow us to focus on specific issues and to humanise the data by capturing their lived experiences in a bid to amplify their voices in conversations that matter.

“In essence, I4ALL exists to represent and elevate the voices of the most excluded populations through data-backed storytelling and amplification; so that relevant stakeholders cannot ignore their voices, and the barriers to their exclusion can be dismantled.

For us at EFInA, collaboration is key, so we are continuing to work with stakeholders to advocate for pro-poor policies and an ecosystem that embraces the most vulnerable.

“For instance, we are currently exploring a partnership with relevant stakeholders in a bid to actualise the possibilities of an instant foundational ID Enrolment to DFS conversion play, which would potentially ensure we do not perpetuate the missed opportunity of the huge number of Nigerian adults who have functional foundation ID but are currently unbanked.

“We have established a strong correlation between ID ownership and poverty, and recognise that the poorer an individual is, the less likely they are to have access to ID. As such, enrolling for the NIN, which serves as the foundational ID for all Nigerians is a key enabler for financial inclusion, and this can only be achieved through committed collaborations.

“The ongoing mandatory NIN/BVN requirement for all Nigerians symbolises this type of collaboration required for scaling financial services access. It is by these types of partnerships that the promise of DFS can extend to every Nigerian,” Akinjayeju added.

Also speaking on how  EFInA’s Gender Centre of Excellence tackles financial exclusion for women, she said women remain disproportionately excluded from financial services, with 30 per cent of Nigerian women lacking access to formal financial products compared to 21 per cent of men.

The EFInA CEO highlighted the Gender Centre of Excellence (GCE) as a key initiative aimed at addressing the financial challenges women face.

She revealed that through research, advocacy, and collaboration, the GCE is working to remove barriers such as high costs, lack of awareness, and cultural norms that limit women’s access to financial services.

She cited EFInA’s partnership with the Grameen Foundation in Kano, which is engaging men as champions for women’s financial inclusion. By addressing gender-specific challenges, EFInA aims to close the financial inclusion gap and unlock economic opportunities for millions of Nigerian women.

She said: “EFInA’s Gender Centre of Excellence (GCE) has been set up as a technical platform to dissect and address the root causes of women’s financial exclusion which revolve around cost, awareness, accessibility, norms, and trust. Women constitute approximately half of Nigeria’s adult population (approximately 56.3m) but have limited access to economic resources in comparison to men thereby preventing the country from achieving optimal productive or inclusive growth.

She continued:”As of 2023, 30 per cent (almost 17 million) of adult women in Nigeria were excluded from financial services in compared to 21 per cent of men that were excluded. Although efforts at advancing financial inclusion in Nigeria have resulted in an overall improvement in financial inclusion from 67 per cent in 2020 to 74 per cent in 2023, the gender gap widened within that period, increasing from 8 per cent in 2020 to 9 per cent in 2023.

“According to a 2019 report by McKinsey Global Institute, closure of the gender gap in men and women’s labour force participation in Nigeria by 2025 would unlock additional GDP of $229 billion. Hence, focusing on identifying and removing the peculiar barriers to women’s economic participation is vital towards achieving sustainable growth.

“Our research estimates that 26 million women are business owners, with the vast majority being micro businesses. Growth of these businesses would result in increased employment and improved welfare for women, their families and communities at large. “However, women have limited access to capital compared to men due to the prevalence of loan underwriting processes that bear inherent biases despite the evidence showing that women tend to, on average, have better loan repayment rates than men, according to CGAP.

“This reality necessitates the development of sector-wide interventions that would progressively remove the barriers preventing women from engaging fully with formal financial services.

To this end, the GCE collaborates with public and private sector actors in implementing pertinent interventions aimed at advancing women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion through four strategic pillars of Awareness, Capacity, Innovation & Accountability.

“With this structured approach, the GCE will be driving projects with measurable outcomes, that seek to improve the financial literacy, agency, digital financial capabilities, access, and usage of diverse and relevant financial services, for the wellbeing and economic prosperity of women and their families.

She added: “For example, we are currently leading a project in Kano in partnership with the Grameen Foundation, to equip men to be champions for women’s access to and usage of formal financial services.

The expected outcome is enhanced agency for women to take financial decisions and reduced cultural barriers thereby leading to an improvement in the financial status and overall welfare of families and communities in the state. ”

Concerning how EFInA’s new facilitation tools are driving systemic change, the CEO explained that EFInA’s strategic approach is anchored on four key facilitation tools:  Research, in generating reliable data to drive innovation and improve market systems, Advocacy to engage with stakeholders using evidence-based insights to foster an efficient financial system, systems strengthening in the  areas of building capacity through technical advisory and training and partnerships & innovation which has to do with collaborating with financial institutions, regulators, and development partners to scale inclusive financial solutions.

She said by deploying these tools, EFInA seeks to create a more inclusive and sustainable financial ecosystem that serves all Nigerians.

On what inspired EFInA’s refreshed strategic direction and what has changed, Akinjayeju reflecting on EFInA’s journey since 2007 noted that Nigeria’s financial inclusion landscape has evolved significantly.

According to her, while access to financial services has improved, the focus must now shift from inclusion to empowerment.

She emphasised that financial inclusion should not be measured solely by the number of bank accounts opened but by the real-life impact of financial services. With this, she pointed out that EFInA’s refreshed strategy aims to move beyond numbers, ensuring that financial inclusion translates into tangible economic benefits for individuals and communities.

“Since EFInA’s inception in 2007, Nigeria’s financial inclusion landscape has changed significantly and EFInA has been at the heart of the journey. From our pioneer Access to Financial Services (A2F) survey conducted in 2008, 53 per cent of Nigerians were reported to be formally excluded from the financial system and only 23 per cent of Nigerians had formal access to a financial service, the remaining 24 per cent relied on informal access.

“This challenge of low access to formal financial services was what framed EFInA’s approach to market development. Recent A2F data, from 2023, shows that formal exclusion has dropped to 26 per cent, and 64 per cent of Nigerians have access to a formal financial service, all testaments to the remarkable progress that has been made.

“But the narrative on financial inclusion has been almost solely on numbers – how many people have bank accounts, how many financial service agents exist, or how many transactions occur daily.These metrics are important, but they tell only a part of the story. True empowerment begins when financial services translate into improved livelihoods.

“Financial inclusion must leave the realm of abstract numbers, and must become a tool for economic empowerment, enabling Nigerians to take control of their financial futures. It must shift the narrative from “opening bank accounts” to “opening doors” for individuals to live out their potential, and for communities to thrive.

“As we redefine our role in the ecosystem and refocus our efforts; our 5-year strategic priorities are broadly underpinned by a vision that goes beyond financial inclusion to economic empowerment. Our four strategic priorities are to have  better enabling policy & regulatory environment; responsive, reliable, safe, and interconnected financial infrastructure, financial service providers (banks & non-banks) being more responsive to the demands of diverse Nigerian customers.

“Finally the experience, voice, and financial capability of excluded segments (especially women, youths, populations in Northern Nigeria & disadvantaged geographies, nano & micro-business owners), strengthened. As EFInA embarks on this new chapter, the organisation is committed to ensuring that financial inclusion becomes a tool for economic empowerment, opening doors for Nigerians to build wealth, improve their livelihoods, and secure their financial futures,” she assured.