ABUJA – In a bid to take micro finance banks closer to the grassroots, the National Association of Microfinance Banks (NAMB) on Sunday in Abuja, unveiled plans to establish agency banking in the country.
The association’s President, Valentine Whensu, disclosed this while fielding questions in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
He said that the major challenge of MFBs which are predominantly in the rural areas was that of infrastructure which makes running their activities more expensive than even the rural areas.
“I would say that this urban drift that we have in this country is also affecting microfinance banks, we need to work on infrastructure; we need to work on the cost of funding,
“What we have done so far is that most of our members are in the rural areas than in urban areas and we encourage them to do.
“What will also solve that issue very soon is when we start agency banking where you don’t need to have bricks and mortar as a branch.
“I can be in Abuja and go to Kubwa and have a customer who is there selling and doing business with me and I just put a desk there and people can come and collect and pay money.
“So that is the new innovation that is happening in microfinance bank and we have concluded the guideline with CBN.
“Anytime from now, agency would be everywhere so you can have banks all over and with that we can perform better than what we are,” he said.
Whensu said that the association, in realization of some basic similarities, plans to partner non-bank financial institutions to reach even more loan seekers.
`’Non-banks are not to receive deposits; they are not regulated by CBN until this fund before the CBN will have an oversight over them.
“We observed that we are all going for the same customer, we are all serving the same sub-sector so there is collaboration between us now and very soon you will be seeing us doing our own annual conference. [eap_ad_1] “It is in collaboration with Association of Non-bank Financial Institutions; so we will strengthen that relationship going forward,” he said.
He warned Nigerians to be wary of banks that might spring up and MFBs only to defraud people but stressed that strict regulations had made such a practice impossible.
However, Whensu stipulated guidelines which Nigerians can follow to ward off fraudulent individuals.
“We are telling Nigerians that if you get to any bank, there is a sticker of National Association of Micro-finance banks which must be on the door post of your bank; NDIC sticker must also be there.
“If you don’t see these two things on the door of any micro-finance bank please quickly report to our various state chapters or report to our national level or report through the media and we will go after such people.
“You can also go on the website of the CBN; every day we update information and then you can get the names of operators,” he said.
He said that any bank found wanting was quickly blacklisted and shut so as to sustain the growing confidence in MFBs in Nigeria.
He said that the CBN as well as the NDIC conduct routine examination of all the MFBs.
Whensu urged all MFBs to desist from unethical practices such as conversion of cheques, banking government agencies, clearing a cheque that does not belong to its customer among others. (NAN)
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