Worried by the difficulty experienced by Nigerians in getting the new naira notes, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN today met with some players in the FinTech space, exploring possible ways of mitigating the hardship.
Specifically, he urged regulators and the banks to deploy more FinTechs and money agents to the hinterlands to address the worrying situation.
According to the VP “you need cash to pay for transport. For instance, in Abuja how do you take ‘drop or along’ or use a Keke NAPEP without cash, or buy foodstuff on the road or in canteens, or even buying recharge cards?
“Parents with kids in public schools give money daily to their children for lunch, most commerce is informal, so you need cash for most things,” Prof. Osinbajo pointed out.
During the interactive session with a number of FinTech investors and ecosystem players, the Vice President said that the Central Bank of Nigeria and the commercial banks should work with all FinTechs that have mobile money agents, not just some of them, in order to reach the farthest places in the country.
According to him, “it seems to me that banks must engage their mobile money operators – FinTechs with mobile money licenses and many of them have micro-finance bank licenses now and already have a network of mobile money agents or human banks or human ATMs (as they are sometimes called) who are responsible to them and they can supervise by themselves. They can do currency swaps and open bank accounts.”
The VP spoke just as the President in a meeting with some All Progressives Congress (APC) governors at the Presidential Villa, assured the nation that the challenges are being addressed and would be solved very soon.
Speaking further about some of the concerns arising from the redesign of the new naira notes, the VP stated that “more disturbing is the fact that after depositing your old notes, there are no new notes, so people everywhere in the urban areas and rural areas simply have no money.”
The Vice President acknowledged that “there are logistical challenges that have to be addressed by the CBN and the banks, especially from the point of view of the average Nigerian and those in the hinterland who hardly use any electronic platforms.”
He also observed that while there has always been a certain failure rate in online banking and money transactions, they have become even more difficult now with the increase in the number of transactions congesting the system.
His words: “so where in the past you used POS or any of the electronic platforms, you had maybe 20%-30% failure rate, now because everyone is trying to get on those platforms, obviously, the failure rate is much more and the problems are much more pronounced.”
He thanked the participants at the meeting for their commitment and contributions, noting that “it has really been revealing hearing all your thoughts about what is going on, our country just simply needs to have the quality of advice that I have received, today.
“We really need to make progress even as we make efforts to deal with some of these issues confronting us today.”
In separate remarks, some of the players made valuable suggestions on how to address the current situation in the country and offered to support government at all levels with the required expertise to address bottlenecks associated with the problem.
They suggested that USSD fees and the cost of data be reduced, while regulators should remove floor prices and called for relieving choke points in online transactions by cutting out some of the technical procedures.
The real issue is not being talked about- the underground corruption where the big wigs are already accumulating the new notes at the expense of making them available to millions of Nigerians.
They are not yet talking about the real problem with the new notes which the underground corruption of banks releasing the notes to corrupt individual who has already stored them in hundreds of millions.
Honestly I don’tsee demoncracy wworkingin NNigeria. Why are we having all these wahala?.
1. PDP APC trying to outsmarteach other . I knowPDP is hhappythat APC is being demarkete.d. Politricks!.
2. Greedy Bank workers who doesn’t care what the common man is goingtthrough.
Solution
Let the military take over to sstabilizethings .. Nigerians need a righteousddictatorwho is ready to do eeverything to fix this countryiincludinghhanging some people or takingtthem toffiring squad. That is when everybodywill sit up . Until that time, we will continue to av crisis and democraze not democracy.
All of you are doing rubbish
Definitely they are.
Thank you Mr vice president
You have spoken well, may God continue to uplift and protect you from your enemies
The major problem is the banks staff the push this new notes out to their pos agent to sell @#200/#1000.i this is happening everywhere they should setup a task force to check mate this frudulent act.
God bless VP
God bless you mr VP ,if we have you as a president things could have better for now because you knew the feeling of massess
Hmmmmn, Osibanjo is the man with some magic wand. So clear on issues and proactive. God help us with this man
Supported visit
Well spoken Mr vice presiden
We need men of Caliban like you to cortail our sabotage economy
Failure na failure. Is this how those before you were running Nigeria, when you and your illiterate slave master made noise and ‘OCCUPIED NIGERIA’ – SHAME…❌❓
Osinbanjo is a gentleman who despite his high education was able to work with a semiliterate old soldier extraordinarily. His service to this country, his decorum and loyalty to his principal shall remain an indelible mark in the annals of partisan politics in Nigeria’s history. He will be the better choice for a Buhari successor that Nigeria never had. Thank you, Sir.
Dear Prof, I am grateful for your listening ear. The populace is already wandering if you are still I government at all. Now the situation we find ourselves now is beyond embarrassment. It is crumbling.
How do we explain this situation that we have no fuel, or when available we are buying at 350 to 500 naira per litre? At the same time we cannot access our hard earned money. No money, no fuel and no electricity at the same time.
Is this a burial of APC in Nigeria?. I am not a politician, but I analyze situations. I am here in Osun state. Oyetola lost the last election. There were various factors responsible for that. But the biggest is the rejection of the APC as a government in Nigeria. Oyetola was a prudent manager. But the people know we bought a bag of rice for N10000 to N12000 when APC came to power 8 years ago, and now a bag is N38000 to N42000. You can go on to petrol, kerosene and gas. Why is this even so biting in election month? Is this situation designed to bury APC or to ensure power stay in a section of the country? Or are we witnessing the dismemberment of Nigeria?
Time will tell.
Thanks for this great comments
Time will tell honorable speaker
Good one
Thanks for enlighten them
What’s happing now in our dear country is call political sabotage of APC leaders to frustrate voters against APC because of the flag bearer, why now all this is happening? Is obvious the man in Aso rock are not in support of Tinubu but Osinbanjo or someone else.
The question is this , whom can we trust to lead us at this point of time ? Nigerians professionals and their families are slaves in abroad, wife’s lost her husband and husband lost his children all in the name of slavery we call Green pasture.
What’s next for us as a Nigeria forget tribalism we are all in it.
Thank you so much Joseph, you analyse issues with alot of meaning. I believe the VP will read ur comment. Nigeria is falling yakata.
Cashless policy is possible it works in other countries overtime there have excess suply of money in the system and that has cause galloping inflation in our country , imagine too much chasing few commodities. Printing more money will cause inflation and depreciate naira.
The real truth is that the CBN governor sold the new naira note to those politicians who stole our money to their house, now they use #100b to exchange #80b which the CBN governor game #20b, banking branch governors are still selling it to business people and politicians, some of them are the owners of the POS agent out their doing business with our own money, how can Bola Tinubu be in position of 2 full truck of 48 feet fully loaded with new naira note of which he is not the old thief we have in this country Nigeria, but they have forgotten we voted for them, but one day we Nigerian too most kill them just that way Ghana did in their country, I promise you politicians we most kill you all for the better of this country.
Now Bola Tinubu is warming up with cutlasses arrows and guns in his old mind to do worst especially we the youth, but the truth is that he failed because we knew it earlier before his step and we are already prepared for him.
Thank you Sir for showing concern on the issues suffered by the masses.
You have shown your fatherly love to the country and we trust that things will soon normalise.
Once again, thank you, Prof
Wike is free to support whom ever he chose to support he only has one vote like wise all of us, thank you