By Ibiyemi Mathew
Telecommunications giant, Globacom has unveiled its Payment Service Bank (PSB), MoneyMaster to boost financial inclusion in the country.
This in light of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) target of achieving 95 per cent financial inclusion by 2024. In recent times, the regulator had issued Payment Service Banks (PSB) licenses to telecommunications companies such as MTN (Momo PSB) and Airtel (SmartCash PSB).
MoneyMaster obtained a payment service bank licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2020.
The company explained in a press release that the service would facilitate payment and remittance services within Nigeria, accept deposits from individuals and small businesses, issue debit and prepaid cards, operate electronic wallets, inbound remittances and carry out other services in line with CBN regulations.
Recent data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) revealed that Nigeria has about 133.5 million bank accounts as at December 2021. Only 54 million of this figure has complete BVNs registration as at April 10, 2022, thereby creating a yawning 79m gap which are potentials for PSBs like MoneyMaster to bridge by bringing the unbanked and under-banked into the financial services ecosystem.
“Our over-arching business objective remains to empower Nigerians by providing them with unlimited opportunities. MoneyMaster extends that objective as it targets the unbanked and under-banked with G-Kala its flagship product in order to deepen financial inclusion in Nigeria,” Glo added.
Similarly, MoneyMaster PSB will leverage on Globacom’s nationwide coverage and extensive agents’ footprint in the rural and urban areas to achieve its planned massive roll-out. It added that all a customer needs to do to open an account is dial *995# and then follow the prompts from a Glo line or from any other telecommunications network as MoneyMaster PSB is network agnostic.
Glo said further that just like it revolutionized the telecom industry with latest technology and unique products when it rolled out 19 years ago, MoneyMaster PSB is poised to redefine the payment service banking landscape and deepen financial inclusion in Nigeria.
According to the mobile network operator, “One key feature of MoneyMaster’s G-kala product is that the customer’s phone number will be used as his or her account number,” the statement continued.
“We are grateful to the CBN for the opportunity to deepen financial inclusion in Nigeria using our cutting edge technology and vast network.”