THE leading ICT company in Nigeria MTN, has expressed its support for the Central
Bank of Nigeria's (CBN) bank- led mobile
money model . It will be recalled that the CBN recently licensed a number of
financial institutions to carry out mobile money services with the objective of
providing easy money transfer services using mobile phones and enhance
financial inclusion particularly in rural areas.
Speaking
at a capacity building seminar, MTN's Corporate Services Executive Akinwale
Goodluck, stated that the CBN bank – led
model has many merits and that it's full implementation would achieve the CBN's stated objective to
extend money transfer services to millions of Nigerians who are currently
underserved.
“We
are supportive of any initiative that brings financial inclusion to the masses
and the Central Bank's efforts in this regard are highly commendable”, he said.
Explaining
the details of the CBN's bank led model, he observed that the partnership
between licensed organizations and telecommunications companies, is a winning
combination.
He
said, “the current partnership between
banks and telcos in the mobile money space leverages available cutting edge ICT
technology offered by telcos and best practice payment protocols and expertise supervised by the CBN.”
During
the seminar, participants gained a better understanding of the details of the
CBN guidelines and discussed various ways in which MTN could offer tangible
backbone and logistical support to licensed organizations.
In
his closing remarks, Goodluck remarked that
as the leading ICT company, MTN's greatest responsibility to its
customers and to Nigeria is to provide world class quality of service in order
to support a multitude of products and services. He observed that MTN Nigeria had already
built the largest and most sophisticated network in Africa.
He
remarked, “the world today is heavily dependent on ICT. Our future success as a
company depends on how well we support services like mobile money.”
