By Stanley Opara

Tuesday, 21 Dec 2010

Ecobank Nigeria has obtained provisional approval to offer mobile banking services from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

With this licence, Ecobank is mandated to provide mobile banking, payment and associated services to its customers and non-customers on the platform, using agent networks and the mobile phone as means of authentication.

The ”Ecobank Mobile” service, which will be a prepaid product, would cater for all classes of Nigerians, especially the unbanked, the bank said in a statement on Monday.

The Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Mr. Jibril Aku, was quoted as saying that the “Ecobank Mobile” service was in line with the bank‘s mission to provide convenient, accessible and reliable financial products and services to Africans.

According to Aku, with this product, ”Ecobank is committed to implementing an efficient payment system to the banked, unbanked and under-banked with the use of mobile phones as a channel.”

Enumerating the prepaid benefits of the products, Aku said, the Ecobank Mobile Payment Solution would help bridge the gap between the over 64 million unbanked and the over four million under-banked Nigerian adults, adding that the majority of these individuals reside in the rural areas.

”This solution will significantly increase the number of Nigerians who have access to formal financial services,” he said.

Other benefits, he said, were job and wealth creation, setting up a network of over 30,000 agents across Nigeria; extending the convenience of existing online services such as account balance information, funds transfer and bill payment and mini-statements by making them accessible from any mobile device.

”It aids the gradual migration to cashless society and also reduces cost of cash handling among other benefits,” he added.

Source: Punch