With the alarming number of market women, artisans and
underserved population who are unbanked, Heritage Bank Plc has deepen its
retail banking structure by growing its agent banking base to 400 ‘Corner
Shops.’
This is in line with the financial inclusion strategy of the
Central Bank of Nigeria, as Heritage Bank Plc launches agent banking services
at the coastal town of Badagry in Lagos State.
The bank, over the weekend, commissioned an agent, Thy
Grace, to provide a range of financial services to customers in the
neighbourhood of Mowo under the Badagry Local Government.
The MD/CEO of Heritage Bank, Ifie Sekibo explained that the
bank has continued to set standard in the launching of ‘Corner Shop’ to cater
for the need of traders and artisans at different locations across the country.
According to him, the shop is aimed at giving the unbanked,
especially in the rural areas the opportunity to enjoy financial services
without the risk and stress of walking kilometres in order to visit a bank
branch.
However, speaking at the commissioning in Badagry, the Zonal
Business Coordinator, South-West, South-South, Agent Banking, Heritage Bank,
Oluwakemi Adewunmi, described the feat as a major breakthrough that would
relieve the people living in the Ikogazebbe community of the stress they
hitherto faced in transacting banking services.
She said with the new Agent commissioned to represent
Heritage Bank in the locality, banking services would no longer constitute a
headache, but rather would be stress-free for all categories of bank customers.
According to her, anybody can benefit from the services of
the agent whether you are a customer to Heritage Bank or another bank. Adewunmi
explained that customers can open bank account, deposit cash, transfer money
even to other banks and also pay bills. In view of the peculiarity of the
community, she disclosed that the agent deploys mobile POS; adding that the
device would make the agent make banking services available at the doorsteps of
customers.
With the inclusion of Thy Grace, she said
Heritage Bank now boasts of about 400 agents it has established in different
parts of the country. She commended the agents for their commitment over the
past two years that Heritage Bank’s campaign for financial inclusion started.
Her words: “The level of their loyalty is very high and
commendable. Our agents maintain a clean record and they have been effective.”
In his remarks after receiving the Certificate of
Authorisation to carry out agent banking on behalf of Heritage Bank, Hunyingan
Pius Mifrinso, promoter of Thy Grace, commended the bank for the
approval given to him.
He assured that the services of his agency would help to bring
banking services closer to the host community. Before now, Mifrinso disclosed
that for anybody to transact banking services, the person had to travel over a
distance of 15km before getting to the nearest bank. His words: “The Ikogazebbe
community is about 15km far from Badagry and for anybody to do a small banking
transaction; the person has to travel to Badagry town.” Apart from the time
usually wasted in doing that, he said transportation cost a minimum of N400.
Meanwhile, Mifrinso assured that with the new dispensation,
the people in the neighbourhood could heave a sigh of relief as banking is now
made easy. In order to effectively cover the area, he disclosed that his agency
would recruit some roaming agents to comb the community for traders who might
not have the time to deposit the proceeds of their sales in banks.
Agent banking is the delivery of financial services outside
conventional bank branches, often using non-bank retail agents and relying on
technology, such as card readers, point-of–sale (POS) terminal or mobile phones
for real time transaction processing. It is an initiative to actualise the
CBN’s policy on financial inclusion.
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