First Bank of Nigeria Limited, through its specialized window initiative known as Firstmonie Agent Credit, has offered a lifeline to most businesses by giving them easy access to credit.
The bank has loaned over N100 billion to its Agents as a way of supporting their businesses and in accordance to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) financial inclusion policy.
Financial inclusion is a state where financial services are delivered by a range of providers, mostly the private sector, to reach everyone who could use them. Specifically, it means a financial system that serves as many people as possible in a country.
It is a strong lever for bridging income inequality, combating poverty and preserving social harmony. It is also an individual’s ability to access and transact businesses through the financial system using technology or other methods provided by the financial institution.
It will be recalled that the CBN through its governor, Godwin Emefiele, has continuously promoted efforts to drive financial inclusion in Nigeria by championing the development and implementation of Nigeria’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy.
Firstmonie Agent Credit is a digital lending solution designed to provide bridge finance to help the bank’s agents to solve liquidity challenges resulting from depleted account balances, even when the agents have physical cash at hand.
Through this scheme, an agent can access the fund, pending cash lodgment at the bank’s nearest branch.
Firstmonie Agent Credit is located in every neighborhood, with over 86,000 FirstMonie Agents spanning across the 772 local government areas in Nigeria, customers can access up to N1 million loan facilities.
According to First Bank, the idea is to close the financial exclusion gap, as well as providing convenient banking activities that are easily accessible and is time saving, for basically individuals in the suburbs and remote areas that may not have access to financial services.
This the bank continues is in line with the mandate of the CBN plan to ensure the availability of affordable financial products and services to all individuals and groups of people in the country; irrespective of location, literacy levels, familiarity with technology and accessibility to modern infrastructural facilities.
The Firstmonie Agent channel is among the bank’s many initiatives to expand financial access in the country.