Financial inclusion in the most populous African nation lags its peers and less than 6% of Nigerians use mobile money, compared with 73 percent of Kenyans, where more than two-thirds of adults have a bank account.
The central bank has said it’s taking inspiration from India, where a government-biometric database known as Aadhaar helped grow financial inclusion from 53 percent to 80 between 2014 and 2017, by cutting the cost for banks of identifying a customer. Regulators in Nigeria also announced an initiative in March that will help to increase banking agents to 500,000 within two years, from 100,000, according to estimates by Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access, or EFInA, a research organization.