Tailor-made Financial Services: Key To Closing Financial Inclusion Gap

9Payment Service Bank (9PSB), Nigeria’s foremost digital payment service bank focused on financial inclusion, has reiterated the need for players driving financial inclusion to collaborate and provide innovative and tailor-made financial products and services so as to improve the lifestyle of the underserved, and thereby reduce drastically the gap in the country between the banked, the underbanked and the unbanked.

Speaking while delivering a keynote address at the 2023 Digital Pay Expo Conference and Exhibition on the topic: “Financial Inclusion and the New Customer Orientation”, the chief executive officer and managing director of 9Payment Service Bank, Branka Mracajac, emphasised the need for collaboration among all the players to better serve the unbanked, underbanked, and the banked.

“There are over one million agents across Nigeria and none of them delivers any other products but payment transactions, cash in, cash out. This means that partnership is crucial for financial inclusion to happen in Nigeria. I am hoping that all payment service banks, fintech and other players in the market will move the numbers when it comes to financial inclusion. The situation in 2020 as stated by EFInA proves that only one out of two Nigerians was using regulated financial services. We see those 21.3 million adult women, representing 20 per cent of Nigeria’s adult population and 17 million men, were yet to be included in the financial system. I trust that when the new data will be published this year, the statistics would have improved significantly,” Mracajac remarked.

“At 9PSB, we meet the unique needs of our customers at preferred touchpoints by serving the rural and underdeveloped communities with little or no access to traditional banking infrastructure, through our wide agent network. Providing fundamental financial services preceded by localised financial literacy efforts, to individuals and small businesses lies at the core of our offerings. Last year, we launched our Customer Experience Centre which is built on three critical pillars: Omni-channel Experience, Proactive Support and Reduced Customer Effort – aimed at ensuring we proactively provide exceptional services,” she added.

Digital Pay Expo is a yearly event designed to bring together industry regulators, fintech top executives, and innovators in the fintech and payment solution space who are looking to collaborate to move the industry forward. The platform provides a unique opportunity for industry players to discover new use cases and technologies that will accelerate the much-needed growth in the fintech ecosystem.