Unity Bank Plc has rolled out its Agent banking services in the Northwestern states of Kano and Jigawa, as a vehicle to reach out to the unbanked and thus deepen financial inclusion.
The services are available at Gumel in Jigawa State, and Rijiya-Lemu in Fagge Local Government area of Kano State.
The Group Head, Retail & SME Banking, Unity Bank, Mr. Olufunwa Akinmade, explained that the Northwest’s was borne out of the need to tap into the huge unbanked population in the region.
According to him, Agent Banking is conceptualised to evolve as a model of community and rural banking, where basic banking services are brought to the level of rural financial activities.
The roll-out, which witnessed the opening of many Agency outlets in the areas, was attended by numerous locals, customers, and prospects, who were all excited to be able to avail themselves of financial services without travelling long distances to a bank’s branch.
The customers were able to open accounts with Unity Bank, perform cash-in (deposit), cash-out (withdrawal) as well as bills payment transactions at the new Agent Banking outlets.
He said, “An important part of the roll-out in any location is a two-day customer education session organised to bring customers up to speed with the basic tenets of the
scheme.
“The mitigant on the withdrawal side is that the service is running on MCash – a secure phone-based withdrawal system backed by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems. At the deposit end, the customer must receive an alert to be sure that the transaction had been consummated. This is in line with CBN regulation, which states that all transactions are processed online real-time.”
