Financial exclusion drops to 36.8%

• Over 36.6m Nigerians financially excluded
• Gombe, Kano, Jigawa are most affected states

The percentage of financially-exclusive people in the country has gone down by 4.8 per cent from 41.6 per cent in 2016 to 36.8 per cent in 2018, yet, millions still lack access to financial services.

According to Enhancing Financial Innovation (EFInA) & Access to Financial Services Survey (A2F) for 2018, which was launched yesterday, 36.6 million Nigerians are still not part of both the formal and informal financial market.

EFInA, in its bi-yearly survey, estimates that only 48.7 per cent of the entire adult population is formally included in the country, while another 14.6 per cent make use of other informal financial services.

The report stated that 68.2 per cent of the entire adult population makes use of financial services in the country, both formal and informal, with a majority being bank account holders.

This recent survey shows that the nation is still far from the 80 per cent financial inclusion target of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy, but has significantly increased from the previous 59.4 per cent inclusion recorded in 2016.

Meanwhile, North-West and North-East regions of the country are still the most excluded with an exclusion rate of 62 per cent and 56 per cent respectively.

Gombe, Bauchi, Kano, Jigawa and Yobe are the states with the worst cases of financial exclusion, while Lagos is the only state to have achieved the target for financial inclusion.

EFInA’s Board Chair, Segun Akerele, who spoke at the launch, said the survey was a nationally representative sample of all Nigerian adults aged 18 years and above.

However, Esaie Diei was introduced to stakeholders and participants at the event as the new Chief Executive Officer of EFInA.

Prior to his appointment, Diei had worked at the United Bank for Africa, Globacom and IBM, where he managed mobile money, prepaid, technology and financial business services.