MTN Nigeria’s fintech subsidiary, Mobile Money Payment Service Bank (MoMo PSB) on Thursday emphasised the need to build trust in the infrastructure of payment services as it is critical to achieving ultimate in financial inclusion.
The Head, Customer Engagement, Momo PSB, Chioma Nwahiri, said this at a breakfast forum organised by the Nigeria-South Africa Chamber of Commerce in Lagos.
BRANDPOWER reports that the topic of discussion was, “Financial Inclusion and Cashless Payment in Nigeria: The Momo PSB Way.”
Nwahiri said that in building trust, payment services should be designed to meet the needs and existing financial behaviour of its users.
She noted that the most financially excluded are women due to social norms, saying that many traders are also financially excluded due to their lack of trust in payment services.
“Agent banking is helpful in driving financial inclusion and pivotal in cashless payment, it is critical to have where there are no banks.
“Trust, security, word of mouth, awareness, empowerment and hand-holding are important for adoption of financial inclusion and continuous usage.
“Enabling regulation, infrastructure development, education, awareness and financial literacy are also factors that support growth of cashless payments plan and financial inclusion.
“I, therefore, urge government to ensure that the infrastructure is adequate and robust enough to carry the volume of financial activities on it because it will increase trust,” she said.
Nwahiri also noted that there are Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that could be used to monitor irregular monetary patterns that could curb fraud.
According to her, the benefits of financial inclusion and promotion of cashless policy is empowering and beneficial to Nigerians in the digitalised space, and it is necessary to get people to be more financially included in different Africa countries.
She said that 50.5 per cent or 53.6 millions adults are using informal financial services, therefore, designing their needs and existing behaviour made it easy to migrate.
The customer engagement boss said that agent banking was also an opportunity to digitise the savings culture of artisans, without necessarily changing what they are used to.
“The importance of collaboration, trust, security and enabling regulation are factors that will drive financial inclusion in the country.
“To close the financial index gap requires active collaboration of public and private organisations within the ecosystem to take financial inclusion to the last mile,” she said.
According to her, Momo PSB is in the 774 local government areas in the country promoting financial inclusion.
