This is in line with the financial
inclusion strategy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, as Heritage Bank Plc
launches agent banking services at the coastal town of Badagry in Lagos State.
The bank, over the weekend, commissioned an
agent, Thy Grace, to provide a range of financial services to customers in the
neighbourhood of Mowo under the Badagry Local Government.
The MD/CEO of Heritage Bank, Ifie Sekibo
explained that the bank has continued to set standard in the launching of
‘Corner Shop’ to cater for the need of traders and artisans at different
locations across the country.
According to him, the shop is aimed at
giving the unbanked, especially in the rural areas the opportunity to enjoy
financial services without the risk and stress of walking kilometres in order
to visit a bank branch.
However, speaking at the commissioning in
Badagry, the Zonal Business Coordinator, South-West, South-South, Agent
Banking, Heritage Bank, Oluwakemi Adewunmi, described the feat as a major
breakthrough that would relieve the people living in the Ikogazebbe community
of the stress they hitherto faced in transacting banking services.
She said with the new Agent commissioned to
represent Heritage Bank in the locality, banking services would no longer
constitute a headache, but rather would be stress-free for all categories of
bank customers.
According to her, anybody can benefit from
the services of the agent whether you are a customer to Heritage Bank or
another bank. Adewunmi explained that customers can open bank account, deposit
cash, transfer money even to other banks and also pay bills. In view of the
peculiarity of the community, she disclosed that the agent deploys mobile POS;
adding that the device would make the agent make banking services available at
the doorsteps of customers.
With the inclusion of Thy Grace, she
said Heritage Bank now boasts of about 400 agents it has established in
different parts of the country. She commended the agents for their commitment
over the past two years that Heritage Bank’s campaign for financial inclusion
started.
Her words: “The level of their loyalty is
very high and commendable. Our agents maintain a clean record and they have
been effective.”
In his remarks after receiving the
Certificate of Authorisation to carry out agent banking on behalf of Heritage
Bank, Hunyingan Pius Mifrinso, promoter of Thy Grace, commended the bank
for the approval given to him.
He assured that the services of his agency
would help to bring banking services closer to the host community. Before now,
Mifrinso disclosed that for anybody to transact banking services, the person
had to travel over a distance of 15km before getting to the nearest bank. His
words: “The Ikogazebbe community is about 15km far from Badagry and for anybody
to do a small banking transaction; the person has to travel to Badagry town.”
Apart from the time usually wasted in doing that, he said transportation cost a
minimum of N400.
Meanwhile, Mifrinso assured that with the
new dispensation, the people in the neighbourhood could heave a sigh of relief
as banking is now made easy. In order to effectively cover the area, he
disclosed that his agency would recruit some roaming agents to comb the
community for traders who might not have the time to deposit the proceeds of
their sales in banks.
Agent banking is the delivery of financial
services outside conventional bank branches, often using non-bank retail agents
and relying on technology, such as card readers, point-of–sale (POS) terminal
or mobile phones for real time transaction processing. It is an initiative to
actualise the CBN’s policy on financial inclusion.
Source: Heritage Bank Plc
Location: Lagos Nigeria
