The financial inclusion and the
cashless policy initiatives of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last
week got uplifted following Stanbic IBTC Bank and the Subsidy
Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) Maternal and Child
Health (MCH) Project, on mobile conditional cash transfer programme
tagged ‘Moni for my Phone.’
The SURE-P MCH mobile conditional cash
transfer programme is part of a scheme being implemented in the Federal
Capital Territory and 17 other states in support of SURE-P MCH’s
demand-side interventions in the health sector. The service, now rolling
out in selected primary healthcare centres across the country, will
enable Nigerian women living in the rural and hard-to-reach locations in
the country to receive cash through Stanbic IBTC’s mobile money service
as incentive for their increased accessibility and utilisation of
maternal and child health services.
Speaking during the launch at Dobi
Primary Health Care Centre, Gwagwalada, Abuja, on December 2, 2014,
Obinnia Abajue, executive director, personal and business banking,
Stanbic IBTC Bank, said “the partnership represents another major way to
leverage evolving technologies and partnerships to enhance value
propositions and bring affordable financial services closer to
Nigerians.” The service will leverage Stanbic IBTC Bank’s unique bulk
payment solutions to transfer money seamlessly and instantly into mobile
money accounts, he said.
“We are very pleased to partner with
SURE-P MCH project on this strategic initiative. The partnership will
help in actualising our goal of enhancing access to mobile money
services by more Nigerians through the Stanbic IBTC mobile money
platform. This collaboration provides another entry point for fast and
convenient means of sending and receiving money, and further
demonstrates our commitment to continuously deliver innovative products
and solutions, part of which includes enhancing the robustness of our
mobile banking and mobile payments systems,” Abajue said.
Abajue described mobile money as a game
changer, which apart from enabling customers to conduct basic financial
transactions such as mobile money account opening, buying airtime,
deposit and receipt of cash, as well as payment of utility bills through
their mobile phones, also offered enormous benefits to the Nigerian
economy by channelling the huge funds in the informal sector through the
banking system to engender economic development.
He said it was in recognition of the need
for market-driven partnerships and alliances with the different
stakeholders in the mobile money value chain that Stanbic IBTC Bank went
into partnerships with the four major telecom operators in Nigeria,
enabling mobile payment services to take root, proliferate, and scale up
across the country.
On his part, Ado J.G. Muhammed, executive
director/CEO, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, said
“the SURE-P MCH project is an initiative that builds on the gains of the
Midwives Service Scheme (MSS) and is utilising a combination of supply
and demand-side interventions to provide health services to more
Nigerian women and children.”
He identified states where the mobile
conditional cash transfer programme will be implemented to include Abia,
Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Delta, and Ebonyi. Others are Ekiti,
Enugu, Kaduna, Kogi, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Sokoto, Taraba, and Zamfara.
Only recently, an international
non-governmental organisation (NGO) appointed Stanbic IBTC Bank to
disburse monthly stipends through its mobile money and revolutionary
biometric payment solutions to pregnant and nursing mothers in an
initiative expected to run over the next five years. The disbursements,
which commenced in April 2014, will be officially launched very soon.
Stanbic IBTC Bank is a subsidiary of
Stanbic IBTC Holdings plc, a full-service financial services group with a
clear focus on three main business pillars – Corporate and Investment
Banking, Personal and Business Banking, and Wealth Management. Standard
Bank Group, to which Stanbic IBTC Holdings belongs, is rooted in Africa
with strategic representation in 20 key sub-Saharan countries and other
emerging markets; Standard Bank has been in operation for 151 years and
is focused on building first-class on-the-ground banks in chosen
countries in Africa and connecting other selected emerging markets to
Africa and to each other.
HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE
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