‘Blockchain Technology Will Enhance Financial Inclusion’

‘Blockchain Technology Will Enhance Financial Inclusion’

E-Tranzact, a Financial Technology and Switching Payment Company has stressed the need for the adoption and deployment of Blockchain technology, insisting that it will further enhance financial inclusion strategy in the country.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the switching company, Mr. Niyi Toluwalope, who gave the assurance at a media interactive session in Lagos on Tuesday, said the company had since realised the importance of Blockchain technology in driving financial transaction processes, and had since built its proprietary products and solutions on Blockchain technology.

The Deputy Managing Director at E-Tranzact, Mr. Hakeem Adeniji-Adele, further explained that the company had gone beyond the basis and has taken its Blockchain technology to the cloud, making it cloud-enabled in order to demystify financial transactions for all, while supporting agency banking that will further meet the target of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to achieve 500,000 agent network across the country.

According to Toluwalope, the company was able to achieve N30 trillion transactions value last year, in over 400 million specific transactions, using its Blockchain technology, designed to facilitate financial technology and to save more money for bank customers and the Nigerian economy.

He said the technology helped the switching company to empower agents in the agency network ecosystem as well as empower the unbanked and under-banked customers across the country.

While expressing his displeasure over the low volume of digital payment transactions across the country, Toluwalope said although one of the major challenges to digital payment transactions remained a culture issue, where most Nigerians prefer to hold on to physical cash at any given time, the company was making efforts to ensure it brings every adult and bankable Nigerian on board the financial inclusion strategy by working closely with agency banking network, by providing the basic infrastructure that will enable agents recruit more mobile money users.

“Our interest is in expanding the agency network with our cloud-based technology by empowering people in rural communities that operate shops and kiosks and preparing them for agency banking,” Toluwalope said.

Speaking on the extent to which the company had gone in addressing some of the challenges of agency banking in the country, with regards to network failure that results in failed or incomplete financial transactions, Adeniji-Adele said E-Transact opened an online complain desk where such matters are reported and addressed squarely.

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