Poor financial literacy is responsible for the gap in Nigeria’s financial inclusion

Omilola Oshikoya International is a wealth and finance advisory, training and coaching company founded in 2015 by Africa’s wealth connoisseur, Omilola Oshikoya. Recently launching the Tech World of Finance under Wofin Tech Limited, a subsidiary, she talks to TOBI AWODIPE on what WOFIN is all about and how it can help reduce the financial inclusion gap, unemployment and financial literacy especially among women.

What exactly is WOFIN?
The Tech World of Finance (WOFIN) is the first of its kind online financial education platform in the world, focused on reducing the financial inclusion gap, financial literacy gap and the unemployment rate in Nigeria and Africa, thereby reducing poverty and creating wealth. The goal is to be the go-to online financial education platform for millennials, where they can become financially literate in the simplest and most affordable way. Simply put, our vision is to be the ultimate World of Finance.

Which major financial partners have you brought on board?
We have an international financial consultant, Juliet Kapena, Access Bank, represented by Chinonye Udechukwu, PiggyVest, represented by Joshua Chibueze, the co-founder of PiggyVest and the Association of International Certified Professional Accountant’s, represented by Ijeoma Anadozie, the Associate Director, Nigeria.

In your expert opinion, why is Nigeria’s financial inclusion still very low?
A major reason why Nigeria still has a low financial inclusion gap of 40.1 per cent compared to 11 per cent in South Africa, increasing unemployment rate of 23.1 per cent in July 2018 from 18.8 per cent in July 2017 and 69 per cent of Nigerians living below the poverty line in 2019, according to Oxfam, is because of a lack of financial literacy.

Furthermore, a major problem financial institutions face is the fact that new digital technologies are changing the value proposition of financial products and services in the financial services industry. The innovation of traditional financial products by Fintech is changing customer expectations and also creating opportunities in underserved markets and the sector most affected by this is retail banking. According to the Nigeria FinTech survey 2017 by PWC, banks ranked loss of market share and increased pressure on margins as the biggest Fintech threats. To foster economic development, the focus should be on the youths, given the demography of Nigeria with a strong youthful population. Therefore, due to the inclination of millennials for technology, speed, and convenience, innovative strategies need to be adopted to educate them in the most affordable way.

How can people tap into this world?
With the Tech World of Finance, which I’ll call the Uber of finance, millennials can become financially literate in a convenient and affordable way and have access to a bouquet of financial products to choose from. Furthermore, financial institutions and fintech companies will be able to create awareness for their financial products that target the retail market, and up and coming personal finance coaches will have a platform to improve their skills and experienced finance professionals will be able to showcase their content and reach a global audience. Features on the platform include online courses such as the Wealth Creation online course, debt-free online courses and so on.

For the wealth creation online course, we have partnered with PiggyVest and Access Bank Plc, where anyone who would like to access the course would have to, first of all, start their journey to financial freedom by opening savings account with PiggyVest or Access Bank Plc with as little as N5, 000. PiggyVest is digital savings and investment platform that helps young people save and invest. The Tech World of Finance is very good at producing financial literacy contents and Piggyvest is good at building tech products, this covers the needs of the people who are not financially literate and also provides a platform to practice what they learn from the financial literacy contents.

Access Bank will provide financial services by making people aware of how to save, how to manage their finance and how to make their finance work for them. The partnership will enable the bank to reach more people, thereby closing the financial inclusion gap. Access Bank is passionate about encouraging people to save and going digital is the way forward. We want to see people and businesses succeed through their qualifications and how this resonates with reducing poverty and creating wealth, which is one of the goals of The Tech World of Finance.

What other benefits would people gain?
There are so many super educative courses on the platform, especially understanding financial information for non-financial professionals, a 13-pack course with topics such as understanding profits, how to develop business plans and so on. Some of the contributors on the platform include Sola Adesakin, Lead coach at Smart Stewards, Omorinsola Ipaye, Founder of K. Parkwood Property Services Ltd, Nnenna Ajegbo, a business advisor, Omobola Adekola, a legal practitioner, Glory Edozien, founder of Inspired by Glory Academy and Omotayo Adeola amongst others.

We need to learn the difference between earning an income and creating a passive income and finance coaches and fintech platforms must come together to reach more people. Users of the platform are already giving testimonies on how the platform has impacted them positively and I want more people to benefit from it. If you want to learn more about the world of finance, please go to our site at wofin.org or our social media handles on twitter and Instagram.