Heritage Bank Plc said it recently deepened its retail banking structure by growing its agent banking base to 400 ‘Corner Shops.’
To this end, in line with the financial inclusion strategy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Heritage Bank also announced its launch of agent banking services at the coastal town of Badagry, Lagos State.
The bank inaugurated an agent, Thy Grace, to provide a range of financial services to customers in the neighbourhood of Mowo under the Badagry Local Government.
The CEO of Heritage Bank, Ifie Sekibo, explained that the bank has continued to set standard in the launching of ‘Corner Shop’ to cater for the need of traders and artisans at different locations across the country.
According to statement, Sekibo said the shop was aimed at giving the unbanked, especially in the rural areas the opportunity to enjoy financial services without the risk and stress of walking kilometres in order to visit a bank branch.
However, speaking at the commissioning in Badagry, the Zonal Business Coordinator, South-West, South-South, Agent Banking, Heritage Bank, Oluwakemi Adewunmi, described the feat as a major breakthrough that would relieve the people living in the Ikogazebbe community of the stress they hitherto faced in transacting banking services.
She said with the new agent commissioned to represent Heritage Bank in the locality, banking services would no longer constitute a headache, but rather would be stress-free for all categories of bank customers.
According to her, anybody can benefit from the services of the agent whether you are a customer to Heritage Bank or another bank.
With the inclusion of Thy Grace, she said Heritage Bank now boasts of about 400 agents it has established in different parts of the country.
“The level of their loyalty is very high and commendable. Our agents maintain a clean record and they have been effective.â€
In his remarks after receiving the Certificate of Authorisation to carry out agent banking on behalf of Heritage Bank, Hunyingan Pius Mifrinso, promoter of Thy Grace, commended the bank for the approval given to him.
“The Ikogazebbe community is about 15km far from Badagry and for anybody to do a small banking transaction; the person has to travel to Badagry town.†Apart from the time usually wasted in doing that, he said transportation cost a minimum of N400.
Agent banking is the delivery of financial services outside conventional bank branches, often using non-bank retail agents and relying on technology, such as card readers, point-of–sale (POS) terminal or mobile phones for real time transaction processing.
