Officials of the Y’ello Digital Financial Services (YDFS) Ltd., a subsidiary of leading information communications company, MTN Nigeria, were at the Bodija Market in Ibadan, Oyo State last Thursday for the regional launch and sensitisation event introducing the MoMo Agent service.
It would be recalled that MoMo Agent was officially launched in Abuja on August 29, 2019. The service aims to support the Central Bank of Nigeria’s drive for financial inclusion in Nigeria, by providing safe and accessible money transfer service to millions of unbanked Nigerians.
Describing the complementary function of the MoMo Agent to traditional banks, the Senior Manager, Mobile Financial Services, MTN Nigeria, Tajudeen Omokhide, said the concern has always been on how to serve Nigeria’s unbanked and bring them into the financial system.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has its financial inclusion agenda. Nigeria is estimated to be about 200 million people; we have 36 million people enrolled on BVN and about 60 million bankable adults not enrolled on BVN. The concern has been how do we reach these people and get them included in the financial ecosystem? It is for this reason I believe that the CBN is licensing companies like ours to assist in delivering financial services,” Omokhide said.
Also speaking, Abiodun Odelola, who is the Segment Manager, Mobile Financial Services, MTN Nigeria, said the unavailability of bank branches and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) spread across the country, has made it increasingly difficult for total financial inclusion. He said it was for this reason that the YDFS introduced the MoMo Agent service.
“With the introduction of the MoMo Agent service, life becomes easier for the customers. The interesting fact is that our MoMo Agents are all over Nigeria. The MoMo Agents are people next door; it could be the shop owner close to you selling provisions, or the hairdresser across the street making hair, and it could be the pharmacist shop near you. So they are people in your neighbourhood that you can easily approach to send or receive money,” Odelola said.
In his remarks, the Chairman of Bodija Market, Alhaji Lamidi Musedeeq Adebukola, thanked the YDFS for launching the MoMo Agent in the market. According to him, he said he was of the belief that the financial service would make life and business transactions easier for the hundreds of traders and customers that daily patronise the booming market.
At the launch, interested traders in the market were signed up as MoMo Agents. The idea behind the regional launch and sensitisation event is part of the YDFS’s mission to put financial services within easy reach of every bankable Nigerian. With the MoMo Agent service complementing existing banking services via extending access to simple money transfer services and other financial services nationwide, the subsidiary plans on rolling out about 500,000 Agents across Nigeria, as well as the Federal Capital Territory
