MTN, ADFI Sign N500,000 To Jumpstart Northern Women inclusion
OLABISI OLALEYE
Against the backdrop of security issues and cultural norms where northern women have been excluded from accessing finance,Y’ello Digital Financial Services (YDFS), the fintech subsidiary of MTN Nigeria, the African Development Bank’s initiative and the Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI) have signed an agreement for a $500,000 grant initiative.
This financial agreement would determine the feasibility of deploying women agents in the northern part of Nigeria.The grant would cover a feasibility study, human-centered design of a women-centric agent network and a pre-pilot to test the impact on the uptake of financial services by women in that region.
Chief Executive Officer, Y’ello Digital Financial Services,Usoro Usoro said, “We are committed to ensuring that every Nigerian can seamlessly access financial services for their personal and business needs. To achieve this, we constantly seek partnerships to support the financial inclusion strategy of the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria. We are truly excited about this partnership with AFDB and the possibilities for advancing financial inclusion in Nigeria, particularly for the traditionally excluded segment of women in Northern Nigeria”.
ADFI Coordinator,Sheila Okiro, also said,’This project was selected from nearly 340 proposals sent in response to ADFI’s call to support financial inclusion in Africa using digital technology. ADFI was looking for innovative thinking that is intentional in addressing the persistent financial inclusion gender gap on the continent. Despite being the backbone of their families and communities, women in Africa remain the most excluded in the world from the finance sector and the mechanisms it offers to help build economic resilience. Through this project YDFS is poised to help bridge the gap in Nigeria.”
African Digital Financial Inclusion Facility, ADFI is a pan-African initiative designed to catalyse digital financial inclusion throughout Africa with the goal of ensuring that 332 million more Africans, 60 percent of them women, gain access to the formal economy.
A recipient of the new licenses, MTN Nigeria, through its fintech subsidiary, YDFS, is seeking to strengthen its super-agent network in the northern part of the country, with particular focus on women’s access to finance. Recognising the pivotal role of agency banking in women’s adoption of digital financial services and the prevalent social norms which limit their ability to make transactions with male agents, hindering their uptake and usage of services, YDFS seeks to innovate around its agency banking network to facilitate gender inclusion.
