FITC boss advocates institutional collaboration, synergy to drive financial inclusion 

The Chief Executive Officer, Financial Institutions Training Center (FITC), Chizo Malize, has advocated for a strategic alliance and collaboration of major economic and institutional stakeholders if Nigeria were to attain success and make useful impact in her drive towards achieving Financial Inclusion.  

Malize who was keynote speaker at third edition of The Industry Summit / Awards which held in Lagos observe also that attaining Financial Inclusion in Nigeria would not only be a huge success, rather it would result in market explosion and boost  national wealth, but noted that stakeholders must build synergies and collaborate across the board.

Addressing a huge gathering of participants at the summit on the event theme : “Financial Inclusion, Digital Payments and the Challenges of Banking the Unbanked”, the FITC boss drew a nexus between the topic in discuss and the Global Economic Pyramid, pointing out that the Financial Inclusion subject is pointer to the mandate for every economic player to pay greater attention to bottom line of the economic pyramid.

While emphasizing on the need for  stakeholders to pay attention to the Financial inclusion subject, she noted that financial inclusion as a subject had been identified as  enabler to seven (7) out of the overall United Nations Sustainability Developmental Goals.

According to the renowned expert, the Global Financial Index database had shown  that as of the year 2017, there were 1.7 billion unbanked adults worldwide, adding that, the development poses a great challenge to global wealth, especially in  Africa judging by the huge level of poverty prevalent in the continent. 

Zeroing in on Financial inclusion drive  across Nigeria’s ecosystem, the financial expert observed that Nigeria had long  been identified as poverty capital of the world based on current economic indices, noting that in order to rise up to this challenge and sleep out of this narrative, a number of economic measure must be observed through putting in place the right political and regulatory framework for economic development, digitalizing government payment processes as well as allowing mobile financial services to thrive in the country, while welcoming new business models such as leveraging e-commerce data for financial inclusion.

She highlighted institutional inhibitions to financial inclusion in the Nigerian economy to include, among other things, stringent conditions for operating bank accounts, fear of collapse and loss of money, lack of financial literacy, lack of tailored services to low income earners, low adoption of the cashless policy as well as high rate of unemployment and underemployed.

The annual industry summit event organized by The Industry Newspapers brought together in convergence stakeholders from across Nigeria’s major economic sectors including representatives from various private and public sector institutions and governments. 

Amongst the discussion panelist at the event are : Oti Ukubenyinje, Senior Vice president, Product and product Marketing, Terragon, David Okeme, Divisional Head, Payment Solutions and Vertical Market Systemspecs, Chioma Afe, Group Head, Retail Marketing & Analytics, Access Bank Plc, and Chuma Ezirim, Group Executive, e- Business & Retail Products at FirstBank.