Ecobank Nigeria Plc on Thursday unveiled a new product titled Ecobank Mobile Money in a bid to promote the cash-less policy.

According to the bank, the product is specially designed to deepen financial inclusion for all classes of Nigerian citizens, especially those in the rural and semi-urban areas.

The Managing Director, Ecobank, Mr. Jibril Aku, said that the product would reduce cash dependency level in day to day transactions, which was the fulcrum on which the cash-less policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria stood.

He said, “Ecobank Mobile Money aims at bridging the gap between the banked and unbanked Nigerians and can be used by both account and non-account holders of the bank. This is part of Ecobank’s mission to provide convenient, accessible and reliable financial products and services to the Nigerian people.

“As we all know, mobile money services have huge potential in markets where mobile penetration vastly outpaces the number of people with bank account. This is the clear case in Nigeria today as we have available over 90 million cell phone users, both the banked and unbanked. There is therefore an urgent need to offer an affordable, but convenient, solution to money transfer services.”

Aku stressed that the product delivered convenience, accessibility and reliability to customers in line with the bank’s mission.

He said, “Nigerians, irrespective of their location will now be able to use their cell phones to conduct basic financial transactions – even if they don’t have a bank account. All Ecobank branches have been set up to receive register and unregister customers of Ecobank Mobile Money who want to do transactions on their phones. 

“Also we have agents network – In order to realise our objective of providing financial services to the unbanked, we have commenced focused expansion of our retail agent network reaching into the communities where customers live.”

Source: Punch/Ademola Alawiye