By Collins Nweze
Ecobank Nigeria says its vision to use its agency banking scheme to drive entrepreneurship, provide employment and supporting Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) is yielding fruits, as over 32,000 Nigerians, including former employees and retirees, have adopted the scheme for a living.
According to the bank, apart from helping to drive its financial inclusion strategy in Nigeria, the agents were empowered to create wealth and enjoy financial freedom.
Head of Agency Banking, Ecobank Nigeria, Olanike Kolawole stated this while responding to reporters’ questions in Lagos.
According to Kolawole, the customer experience is very good as customers can do the simple deposit, payment and transfers in their own neighbourhoods rather than travel for hours to a bank branch.
“These are all parts of our efforts as a bank to help more Nigerians embrace entrepreneurship as best strategy to tackle poverty and address growing unemployment. We are happy with our agency banking services providers also known as our Xpress point agents, knowing they are playing a critical role in helping us reach out to the unbanked and underbanked in the society.
“They are bringing more people to the banking space through their services. They carry out financial transactions on our behalf and earn commission on every transaction processed. Also, the Xpress Point is also a channel that is also being used for the deployment of national social intervention programmes of the government,” she stated.
Nike Kolawole cataloged the services offered by the Xpress point agents as cash in, cash out, fund transfer, bills payment, airtime recharge, remittance and account opening, among others.
She said the services were available for “sole proprietors, partnerships, co-operative societies, microfinance banks, companies with large distribution network – like petrol stations, FMCGs, telecommunication companies, super agents, aggregators and unregistered businesses such as petty traders, hair saloon and others.