The Central Bank of Nigeria has said 39.9 per cent of Nigerians are excluded from the banking system.
The percentage represents 62.4 million of the country’s 160 million population.
The Director, Development Finance Department, CBN, Mr. Paul Eluhaiwe, stated this during a seminar on financial inclusion organised by the bank.
He said the number of Nigerians excluded from the banking system had declined by 14.3 per cent to 39.7 per cent in 2012, as against the 46.3 per cent in 2010.
Eluhaiwe, who delivered a lecture titled: ‘Financial inclusion initiatives and national economic development,’ said the figures derived from a 2012 survey by the Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access showed that the exclusion rate had declined across the geo-political zones of the country.
He said in the North East zone, the number of those excluded from the financial system declined from 68.3 per cent in 2010, to 59.5 per cent in 2012, in the North West region, the figure also fell from 68.1 per cent in 2010, to 63.8 per cent in 2012.
This, he said, reflected a decline of 6.3 per cent.
The CBN director also noted that those excluded from the financial system dropped from 44.2 per cent in 2010 in the North Central to 32.4 per cent in 2012.
The South West figure indicated a reduction in those excluded from the banking system from 33.1 per cent in 2010 to 24.8 per cent in 2012, while the South South had 30.1 per cent in 2012.
He said, “Access to finance for poor and other excluded groups could assist to alleviate poverty and promote development by enabling them to save, borrow and invest in the growth of the productive sector.”
But the Acting Director, Consumer and Financial Protection Department, CBN, Mrs. Dutse Umma, said financial literacy and protection would help to boost the success of financial inclusion in the country.
She explained that financial literacy was vital as it would help to ensure that consumers were given the knowledge, skills and confidence to understand and evaluate the information on financial products and services.
Meanwhile, the Governor of Abia State, Mr. Theodore Orji, has said his administration has affected the lives of the people through the construction of developmental projects.