A non-governmental organisation, Rural Trust Fund for Economic Inclusion, has flagged off mass Bank Verification Number (BVN) enrolment of rural communities in Gombe State to encourage rural banking.
Addressing newsmen at the flag-off in Gombe, Chairman of the fund, Mr Joel Aku, stated that the project is expected to reach out to an estimated 167,000 in the state, out of the one million unbanked adult populations in the Northeast sub-region.
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He said the exercise would ensure inclusive finance and well regulated financial environment where adult population in the Northeast have access to and could effectively use financial services at affordable cost.
“In the recently released report by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the state of financial inclusion in Nigeria, it estimates that less than 30 percent in Northeast have access to basic financial services, which was below the national average of 37 percent,” he said.
The chairman stated that the challenging geography and decade-long insurgency had contributed to the financial literacy crisis and lack of financial inclusion in the sub-region which constitutes almost a third of the Nigeria’s population.
According to him, the NGO wants to complement the government’s effort in pursuing the development of financial inclusion to reach the numerous unbanked populations.
Mr Aku added that the CBN has launched the critically important goal of achieving 95 percent financial inclusion by 2024 as well as closing the 8.5 percent inclusion gap in Nigeria: “We hope that this effort will help meet that target.
“This effort to reach 167, 000 BVN registration within the next year across the 114 wards of the 11 LGAs of Gombe State is being supported by the CBN, as a means of their undying effort to achieve significant success in the Northeast.”
According to him, the exercise would benefit individuals and households regardless of their income level as it would give them access to financial services to improve their living standards.
“The mass BVN enrolment of the unbanked through this advocacy process involves multiple stages such as stakeholders’ engagement, data collection, implementation, monitoring and evaluation,” he said.
Aku also said in addition to helping rural communities to benefit from any federal government social intervention programmes, it would also help rural dwellers to adopt new savings culture.
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