- Paga Partners NIPOST on Financial Inclusion
As part of efforts to drive deeper financial inclusion in Nigeria, Paga and the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) recently announced a partnership aimed at making financial services available to all Nigerians by leveraging on all the NIPOST offices across the country as robust financial services points. This will be done on the back of the Shared Agent Network framework approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
A statement explained that through the partnership with NIPOST, Paga will continue to expand its mobile money agent network to include post offices in all the local government areas of Nigeria while giving priority to areas where banking services are limited or otherwise difficult to access.
The initial set of services to be offered are deposits and withdrawals from bank accounts and mobile money wallets, utility bill payments, and airtime recharge for all telecom networks.
Additional services, including savings and loans products, are scheduled for launch in partnership with banking partners.
Speaking on the collaboration with Paga, the General Manager Financial Service, NIPOST, Mr. B.M Mukhtar said: “There is a post office location within reasonable distance of almost every community in the country today, so we see an opportunity for NIPOST to play a leading role in enhancing financial inclusion for the betterment of Nigeria. For this reason, NIPOST is committed to partnering with Paga and other financial institutions to bring critical financial services such as bill payments, bank account deposits and withdrawals, loans, money transfer and more to be available at NIPOST locations nationwide. We are taking it step-by-step and have already started to see the positive impact.”
Also speaking on the collaboration, Paga co-founder and Director of Business Development, Jay Alabraba said: “Our work with NIPOST is simply one of several big steps that we are leading the industry in taking, to bring financial services to all communities in Nigeria.
“The rollout has been on-going since the beginning of 2016, and we are very encouraged by the outcomes so far. The Central Bank provided clear guidelines for shared services such as these, and we invite banks, microfinance institutions, mobile payments providers and others to join us to reach more customers and make the scheme a success. Nigerians needs this now more than ever, so we must direct our resources wisely and make it happen.”
NIPOST and Paga joint teams work closely to ensure the commercial success of the initiative, including training and equipping of the NIPOST staff at each post office performing the transactions and other day-to-day mobile money agent operations.”
