Nigeria Hosts 1St National Financial Literacy Stakeholders' Conference in Abuja
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Nigeria hosts 1st National Financial Literacy Stakeholders’ Conference in Abuja Inside this Issue Financial Literacy Conference 1-2 National Financial inclusion Governing 3-4 Committee meetings Spotlight 5 Insurance Sector 6 Capital market 7 Mrs. Aishah Ahmad—Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability, Central Bank of Nigeria with other Photorama 8-9 dignitaries at the launch of the policy documents during the Conference. The 1st National Financial Literacy governmental organizations., civil socie- Stakeholder En- Stakeholder’s Conference was held on ty organizations, and consumer advoca- 10-11 gagements 17th and 18th January 2019 at Shera- cy groups, amongst others. Over 600 ton Hotel and Towers Abuja. The Confer- persons attended the Conference. Special Interventions ence was organized by the Consumer 12-13 The highpoint of the conference was Protection Department (CPD) of the Cen- the formal launch of the following four tral bank of Nigeria (CBN) in collabora- strategic policy documents: Financial tion with the Financial Inclusion Secre- 14 Literacy tariat (FIS) and the Payment Systems Consumer Protection Framework Management Department (PSMD). (CPF) Digital Financial The theme was “Implementing Financial National Financial Literacy Frame- Inclusion 15 Literacy and Consumer Protection to work (NFLF) advance Financial Inclusion in Nigeria”. Nigerian Financial Financial Education Strategy (FES) Inclusion News 16 In attendance were participants and and stakeholders with roles and interest in Revised National Financial Inclu- International Finan- financial literacy, consumer protection 17 sion Strategy (NFIS). cial Inclusion News and financial inclusion. This included regulators and policy making agencies Mrs. Aishah Ahmad, Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability (FSS) of the Capacity Building 18 within the financial ecosystem, banks and other financial institutions, insur- CBN delivered the keynote address on behalf of the Governor of the CBN, Mr. Upcoming Events ance companies, telecommunication 19 companies, development partners, non- Godwin Emefiele. FIS Contacts 20 2018 Financial Access Strands (Source: EFInA, Access to Financial Services in Nigeria March 2019, Volume 4, Issue 1 FINANCIAL INCLUSION NEWSLETTER Nigeria hosts 1st National Financial Literacy Conference in Abuja (Cont’d) The Conference featured the following presenta- tions: Enhancing Consumer confidence, Insight into the Revised National Financial Inclusion Strategy, Findings from the 2018 EFInA Access to Financial services Survey, and Agent Network and Digital Financial Services. Two panel discussion sessions followed the presentations. Promoting consumer Trust and Confidence for Financial Inclusion; and Agent Network and Digital Services: Address- Panel discussion during the stakeholder conference ing consumer Interests. At the end of the Conference the participants re- for sustained engagement with consumers. solved that: Financial Services Providers (FSPs) should For sustainability and efficient Consumer Protec- treat consumer protection and education very tion procedures, Stakeholders should strengthen important and they should establish structures their collaboration and coordination and key into the Financial Education Strategy. Consumer/Investor protection policies should be establish to boost inclusion in the capital market. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) should be de- veloped for FSPs to implement Financial literacy initiatives at state levels. An appropriate resolution/sanction regime should be developed to address frequent failure of ser- vice related to the payment system. Cross section of dignitaries at the financial literacy stakeholder conference Regulators and the FSPs should work together towards evolving a scheme that would enhance incentivized savings, reduction of excessive charg- es and creation of products that suit the most excluded groups. Other regulators in the financial ecosystem should work with the FSPs to entrench consumer protec- tion in their respective sub-sectors. Technology should be developed to enable Agents open account offline. Stakeholders should endeavor to support current efforts at developing a pragmatic Monitoring and Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship (SAGE) performing at Evaluation (M&E) framework as they will be en- the conference gaged at various stages. 2 March 2019, Volume 4, Issue 1 FINANCIAL INCLUSION NEWSLETTER National Financial Inclusion Governing Committee Meetings 17th National Financial Inclusion Technical Committee Meeting The Chair, Financial Inclusion Technical Committee (DG, FSS-CBN) Mrs. Aishah Ahmad presiding over the 17th technical committee meeting The 17th meeting of the National Financial Inclusion Tech- lization of the industry-level implementation plan and onward nical Committee (NFITC) meeting took place on Thursday, dissemination to agencies for action, communication of targets March 28th, 2019 and was chaired by Mrs Aishah Ahmad, already agreed to CEOs of FSPs, extension of FISSCO activities Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability, Central Bank to the LGAs and the conduct of an account opening week. of Nigeria (CBN). Policy recommendation from the findings of the 2018 EFInA Mr. M. D Suleyman (Director, Financial System Strategy Access to Financial services Survey. Some of these include: 2020 -CBN) who hold brief for the Deputy Governor at the The CBN should update agent regulations to allow for mar- opening of the meeting in his remarks stated that the ket-based pricing rather than setting agent pricing through Chairperson Mrs Aishah Ahmad, was attending an urgent regulations, using strong monitoring and consumer protec- Committee of Governor’s meeting and would join the Tech- tion measures to mitigate risk of price gouging. nical Committee meeting as soon as she was done. NAICOM should update the micro insurance guidelines to He urged participants to contribute effectively to ensure allow existing insurance companies to offer micro insur- the success of the meeting. ance directly, rather than requiring them to set up a sepa- Key highlights from the meeting include: rate entity for this business. Presentation of the outcomes of the 17th Working Group meetings by Working Group Chairmen. Mr. Attah Joseph A .A Head Financial Inclusion Secretariat pro- Updates on key resolutions from the 16th Financial In- vided the issues for the Technical Committee to consider and clusion Technical Committee meeting, some of which approve as follows: included the conclusion of the Unstructured Supplemen- Implementation of NYSC Peer Educators Programme and tary Data (USSD) pricing study by the Nigerian Commu- its provisions in favour of branches of banks and LGAs. nications Commission (NCC). Industry-level Implementation Plan and officially forward Approval by the Director General of the National Youth same to respective agencies for action. Service Corps (NYSC) to deploy corps members to fi- Communicate Targets already agreed to CEOs of Financial nancial institutions for financial inclusion purposes from Services Providers for action. 2019-2020. Extend FISSCO activities to the Local Governments Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and EFInA’s resolve to Conduct of the Account Opening Week. conduct Fintech stakeholder workshops. EFInA’s work- That CBN goes into the MOU with GIZ on behalf of the Financial shop will take place on April 4 2019, in Lagos while Inclusion governing committee to implement the e-learning plat- CBN’s (Regulators) workshop would be scheduled for in form. Abuja Thereafter. At the end of the meeting Mrs. Aishah Ahmad (Chair) who joined During the meetings, the following presentation were the meeting later thanked all members for their participation featured. and general commitment to financial inclusion. She stated that Update on the outcome of the stakeholders’ forum on the collaboration was key to achieving success, stating that there implementation of the revised National Financial Inclusion was a lot of work to be done. Strategy by Dr Paul Oluikpe, Financial Inclusion Secretariat. She re-iterated that an appropriate monitoring framework The presentation requested for the approval of the Commit- should be developed for the Committee to track progress on the tee to implement the NYSC peer educators programme and implementation of the Revised National Financial Inclusion its provisions in favour of branches of banks and LGAs, fina- Strategy. 3 March 2019, Volume 4, Issue 1 FINANCIAL INCLUSION NEWSLETTER National Financial Inclusion Governing Committee Meetings 17th Financial Inclusion Working Group Meetings The Four Financial Inclusion Working Groups held their 17th meeting at the International Training Institute Maitama Abuja on 27th March, 2019 .Key Highlights from the meetings were as follows: Financial Literacy Working Group (FLWG). Financial Inclusion Special 1. Update Financial Litera- Interventions Working cy Curriculum Group (FISIWG) National Pension Commis- 1.Women’s access to Fi- sion has signed a Memoran- nance dum of Understanding (MOU) with University of La- Enhancing Financial gos to roll out pension litera- Innovation and Access cy courses which is due to (EFInA) reported that commence in the 2nd Quar- they had Commis- ter, 2019. sioned a gender land- Cross section of working group members during the meeting scape study that would 2. Financial Literacy Stake- feed into the develop- holder Conference ment of the strategy CBN reported that the document on women’s Conference was held on access to financial ser-