Experts on insurance and pension have called for deliberate incentives to attract nano, micro, small and medium enterprises join the micro insurance and micro pension plans currently being promoted.
Dr. Chinyere Almona, Director General/Chief Executive Officer, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), also joined the call for this for incentives small businesses.
She made the call while delivering a paper on “Onboarding MSMEs into Micro Insurance and Pension Space in Nigeria,” at the 7th Annual Conference of the National Association of Insurance and Pension Editors (NAIPE).
She said, “Although the Insurance and pension sectors have been doing a lot in driving the financial inclusion initiative of the Federal Government, there is need to incentivize and encourage those in the informal sector, the Nigerian Nano, Micro, Small and Medium and Enterprises NMSMEs operators to embrace micro insurance and join the micro pension plan.”
Dr. Almona said “NMSMEs presents huge opportunity for the micro insurance and pension industry due to the size of the workforce.”
Other opportunities include Large MSMEs employment/labour force, large willing adult population, expanding distribution channels, favourable regulatory environment, mature financial services sector and revolution in information technology and digital innovations.
Statistically, the LCCI DG said the total number of employment by MSMEs stood at 61.9 million representing 87.9% of the total labor force in the country, adding that the number of employment generated by the informal sector was 16 million while the formal sector generated 7.5 million in 2020.
Earlier in her Keynote address, the Director-General, National Pension Commission (PenCom), Mrs Aisha Dahir-Umar who was represented at the occasion by the Head, South West Office of PenCom, Dr Tunde Alayande, said the on-boarding SMEs into the Micro Pension scheme is one of the strategies in which the pension industry has been contributing to the financial inclusion initiative of the Federal Government.
She said the micro pension plan was designed for those in the informal sector including the SMEs
Dr Alayande said that PenCom In collaboration with the Pension Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), has come up with lots of initiatives for the SMEs for the benefit of the industry
The highpoint of the event was the rebranding of the National Association of Insurance and Pension Correspondents (NAIPCO) to the National Association of Insurance and Pension Editors (NAIPE)
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