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Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access (EFInA), a development organization promoting financial inclusion in Nigeria, has released $100,015 as Technical Assistance Grant to FINCA Microfinance Bank’s Agency Banking network. According to a statement released on Wednesday, the grant is aimed at expanding low-cost and secure financial services to the unbanked women in South-Eastern Nigeria.  

FINCA Microfinance Bank is a subsidiary of FINCA International, a global non-profit and microfinance organization. The microfinance bank said under its agency banking network, which is expected to deliver convenient and secure financial services to the unbanked especially women, customers will be able to open new accounts, deposit and withdraw cash and perform account-to-account transfers through ‘agent’ assisted banking. FINCA MFB said the EFInA grant will kick-start the pilot phase of its agent banking network project in Owerri, Imo State.

“The FINCA agency banking network clearly aligns with EFInA’s key focus area of using agent banking as a means to reach many under-served and under-banked people, especially women,” said Chidinma Lawanson, Chief Executive Officer of EFInA. “Through this project, FINCA MFB will offer a full suite of pro-poor savings and loan products to the under-banked people in the South East.”

EFInA said bank penetration in Nigeria averages only 6.43 branches per 100,000 adults, and this figure is less in rural areas. Also, the distance from bank branches and the associated high cost of servicing low-balance accounts are key challenges that increase financial exclusion of the poor, according to findings from its EFInA Access to Financial Services in Nigeria 2014 survey.

CEO of EFInA, which is funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, further said FINCA’s experience in several African countries shows that the deployment of an agent banking network is ultimately a tool through which savings are mobilized.

“The overarching value proposition on FINCA’s Express (Agency Banking) is to provide clients with choices that ease access to financial services,” said Philip Takyi, CEO of FINCA Microfinance Bank Ltd Nigeria. “We are committed to reaching low-income Nigerians, micro-enterprises, and small businesses that need access to socially responsible financial services. Customers of FINCA will have unlimited access to their account, they can withdraw, make deposits, repay their loans, make transfers from their FINCA account to other FINCA accounts, print their statements and check their account balances without paying for any of these services or leaving their businesses.”

FINCA MFB’s goal is to expand outreach into five additional states with fourteen branches in the South-East region within five years, reaching more than 267,000 active clients.