Bank Your Village

I am in the world to make it better. It is for this reason that I work to use finance to solve some of the challenges my society faces.

I currently work as the Group Head, Strategy and Innovation at Sterling Bank Plc. In this role, I am able to work across multiple platforms with different stakeholders including the government to build structures that contribute to economic development in Nigeria. One of my projects for example, currently engages over 10,000 agents across Nigeria working to improve the lives of our 1.5 million customers in Nigeria. Prior to joining the bank, I worked at EFInA – a development finance organization working to make finance accessible to all in Nigeria.

In my personal life, I am interested in developing women. I work with many female owned businesses to improve their outcomes and also mentor underachieving young girls to reach their true potential.

The poverty rate in Nigeria is 40%. I am committed to reducing this by 1 million people every year by providing a sustainable means of livelihood for people and using finance to solve some of their basic needs. Financial inclusion allows people to manage their money in a way that improves their lives, as they are able to access affordable credit, make safe investments and access insurance. One of the easiest ways to make money in Nigeria is through petty trade or micro services. Therefore, by providing support for traders, we are creating an opening for increased economic development. The multi-purpose solar kiosks allow rural community dwellers to have a ‘business space’ and address financial access challenges. The kiosk by design provides a sense of self-ownership and allows for communality as it provides power and jobs.

High rural income inequality and a poverty rate of 40%, amplified by high off-grid rural population of 61%, has contributed to the country’s ever-increasing high financial exclusion rate in rural communities. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), financial exclusion stood at 36.8% at the end of Q4 2019.  Solving Nigeria’s high rural financial exclusion requires economically empowering rural dwellers, because economic empowerment leads to financial inclusion. You cannot bank with no money, after all!

Therefore, the solar powered banking kiosk serves as a mobile business hub for micro businesses such as; petty trading, barbing and hair dressing salons, business centers, relaxation centers to watch sporting events etc. The kiosks also come with inverter batteries, which means that families can have access power in their homes, or farms, this helps them to be more productive and enjoy better quality of life.

Bank Your Village involves the deployment of solar kiosks to identified locations in rural communities for agent banking services.

The project involves employment of an agent to facilitate financial services such as deposits, withdrawals, transfers and opening of bank accounts, and provision of off-grid solutions for small electronic devices such as phones, radio etc. The project is executed in partnership with host communities to ensure support of the community.

On the financial transactions alone, agents are able to earn up to $500 per month with the ancillary businesses allowing that income to increase by an extra $200 - $300 per month. In rural Nigeria, this makes life much more bearable as they can access better healthcare, education and other basic amenities.

The communities my project targets are not connected to the grid therefore they have no power. Because of the lack of access to power, some rural dwellers clap their hands to chase birds that prey on their produce rather than use noise machines. They use traditional medicine for everything because there is no functional primary healthcare centre and their children are part of the labour force because there are no schools.

I have spent the last 10 years studying rural behaviour and my project is designed to improve into their lives by being infused into their culture rather than eroding it. By boosting economic activity in an area, they are able to attract other amenities – the yardstick for a lot of service providers are 1) access to power which the kiosks provide 2) access to financial services 3) access to mobile telecommunication. All 3 are present on this project which makes it easy for low-cost education and simple digital health facilities to be provided. This worked in the community we first enrolled on the project in Oyo State; today inclusion level is about 70% with loans up to $20,000 given to over 30,000 people for education and trade finance. 

Nigeria’s rural population are traditionally left behind: although the national poverty rate is 40%, poverty rate in Northern Nigeria is much higher – 76.8% in the North-East and 81.1% in the North-West. The high level of neglect of these areas systematically results in lower living standard than other regions. Through our project, the foundations of poverty and financial inclusion are resolved in sustainable ways. Our project enables us provide clean energy solutions and financial services to rural communities, which can be leveraged to improve individual lives, families and entire communities. We focus on the most secluded villages and work outwards.

As I travelled for research, I noticed that some of the communities I visited, had economic activities going on, however, it was uncoordinated and was still running a barter system. I was receiving phone calls which meant there was definitely telecoms connection.

My team and I then started to dream about being able to live in those picturesque places, but the question was, what would we need to survive that they did not have. There was Arsenal and Barcelona matches, hair wash days, ability to charge our phones and first aid. This is when the idea for a system that allowed you do this came to us. We had been on a retreat to a resort that had these common areas for all these things and that’s how Bank Your Village was born. We wanted to build something that allowed for communality and access to basic amenities.

Banking was the afterthought because we figured that people needed a place to keep their money if economic activity was boosted. What was most important is building something that the communities could own and manage in order for us to build trust in our service.

I live Lagos, one of the most crowded cities in the world which currently has a population of 20 million people. Lagos is crowded because rural dwellers are in search of a better life. What drives my passion is that a better life is possible everywhere if it is made available.

I love the North and I'm originally Fulani. My people are smart, industrious and communal but are the most excluded from the economy. This has led to a rise in insurgencies and crime in an otherwise peaceful place. I believe that economic inclusion reduces this significantly. I want to be able to move away from the fast pace of Lagos and feel safe when I visit Sokoto, Kano, Bauchi, Maiduguri or Zamfara. More importantly, I want the people who do not have the chance or opportunity to come to Lagos to live a life that is comfortable. Bank Your Village allows that.

Far too many Nigerians are illiterate (62%), poor (40%), lack access to infrastructure and we cannot wait in perpetuity for government intervention. Development in Nigeria will be quick if we use private sector capital, donor funding to augment the work of the government.

I ran a project that directly impacted the lives about 1.5 million financially excluded people with about US$32 million in micro loans disbursed and a savings portfolio of $40 million. I have also been privileged to work for and with public and private institutions, thus giving me a robust perspective in engaging stakeholders.

I am a knowledge seeker and my interests have driven me to investing in building a network while learning from the best in the world at Harvard and Columbia. To survive in Nigeria, you must know the right things, people and be competent. My adaptability allows me make friends easily in the communities we go to.

In addition to these, I have the support of executive management and the board for the Bank as the benefits of improving accrue to them in the long run.

One of the biggest challenges I have faced in the course of my work was dealing with a situation of unrest that erupted as a result of my economic empowerment work. We had devoted funds to boost agricultural development in Kebbi State, Nigeria. We intended to deploy these funds, through our agent network, to farmers within the state, to increase their yield for the next farming season. However, a high level of distrust for our work within the farming community, led to an ugly situation that ended up with one of our agents getting severely beaten.

The whole team was dejected but resolute regardless. Instead of packing up and leaving, I instructed my team to onboard new agents within that local community and begin another outreach to the farmers through our new local agents. This idea worked magic as the farmers became more trusting of our initiative when they realized that we had already provided employment for some of their young locals. Employing members of their community to reach out to the farmers also made them more receptive of our funding. In the end, we provided funding of about $2m for over 10,000 farmers and increased output by over 400%.

Someone once told me that providing leadership means to inspire a group of people to win against all odds. In 2018, we were selected by the Nigerian Bank of Industry (BOI) to disburse ₦250 million ($700,000) in social benefits to rural recipients under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP). A night to the disbursement date, we experienced a system shutdown that threatened the success of the entire programme.

My team had resigned to failure because our technical partners were refusing to make any amendments. Rather than allow that deter us, I motivated my team to become technical experts and we found the problem. We then sat all night with the partners having found the solution for them to encourage them to finish the lines of code required to correct the error. The event turned out to be an excellent team binding session and turned our relationship with our technical partners significantly. Not only did we disburse the funds on time, we have since gone on to do bigger projects and even applied for grants on their behalf.

Bank Your Village is a project of the Strategy & Innovation team in partnership with the Agent Banking department at Sterling Bank Plc.

Sterling is an unconventional national bank with a focus on enriching lives for socio-economic development of Nigeria. As the Group Head of Strategy & Innovation, I conceived and launched the Bank Your Village project as a tool for greater economic inclusion. The bank provides the branding, manpower and resources for microlending while getting an opportunity to onboard rural dwellers as customers.

Bank Your Village is distinct due to the adoption of green off-grid power solution approach, hence providing solutions beyond financial inclusion and economic empowerment. Most communities have opportunities to power basic devices such as phones, radio, lamps required for daily activities and sustenance thereby minimizing the impact or non-existence of erratic power supply.

Finance has the ability to grow or build wealth but requires a catalyst to catch fire. This project is the catalyst for building financial sustenance in rural communities. This is the theory of change.

Since we launched this project in July 2019, we have successfully deployed 26 solar kiosks across different rural communities in Nigeria. These solar kiosks currently provide financial services to about 50,000 rural residents. We stopped kiosk deployment in April 2020, due to the lockdown initiated to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. However, we intend to resume kiosk deployment when interstate restrictions are lifted while adopting federal government safety guidelines. Our goal in the next one year is to deploy more solar kiosks and provide financial services to about 1,000,000 people.  Our 5-year goal is to be the institution that is changing the lives of rural dwellers while providing financial services to at least one million rural residents. 

Financial – The project is capital intensive as the cost of a kiosk is about US$6,400. Funds are needed to produce and deploy new kiosks to new locations and expand the scope of the project. In some locations, we struggle with unrealistic rents and local fees for allocated spaces as stakeholders are sometimes inclined to exploit the financial institution.

Technical – Access to stable and reliable network in remote locations is challenging as most of the locations are not within proximity to major towns hence network is limited.

Legal – Approval of legal documents required for deployment is challenging due to agreement of several stakeholders and authorities involved. In addition, many are skeptical about entering into legal agreements with financial institutions.

Cultural/Market barriers – Perception challenge in most markets as traders’ opinion revolves around encroachment of personal market space and threat to market, therefore requiring adequate sensitization before deployment. Some locations also have cases of insurgency, community clashes and security challenges which makes the kiosks susceptible to attacks. 

Financial – Expansion of our sources of funding to deepen penetration to more states and increase the speed and number of kiosks produced. We are also engaging market leaders, local authorities and critical stakeholders on the opportunities for the communities and their residents.

Technical – Adoption of multiple lines to address network issues although, it is very expensive to maintain multiple lines in the long run.

Legal – Engagement of relevant stakeholders in these locations on the need to have to a legal binding agreement to avoid regulatory infractions.

Cultural/Market barriers – General sensitization across identified locations as well as testimonials from other regions where the project has been executed.

Nil

The business model depends on the community to take charge of transactions. Income is earned on financial transactions performed – deposits, withdrawals, transfers, bill payment and airtime purchase. Agents are also paid by the bank for acquiring customers. Income is also earned on providing the charging point service. This allows the kiosk to be self-sufficient as the income generated is able to cover salaries/wages/commissions for agents and also fix problems in the kiosk. To break even, the kiosk needs to perform about 15 - 20 transactions a day.

The bank earns income from lending and gains the opportunity for customer acquisition which is what is most important to the bank on this project – to build a customer base it can grow with.

The financial sustainability of the project is dependent on its initial capital structure. To be successful long term, it requires a blended approach with grants from donor organisations and investment capital from the private sector. Donor funds are able to fund long-term capital assets such as the kiosks while other funds are used for OPEX and lending. Over 7 years, the project is expected to be able to generate funds of at least 60% of its capex and the remaining 40% will be realised over another 3 years making it a 10-year project based on the current value of the kiosks. We suspect that the costs will reduce as we become more adept at local production. As at today, there is a monopoly on who creates these kiosks and that has an effect on its pricing.

In 2019, we raised equity funding for the sum of N100million naira from Sterling bank to implement the first phase of our project. This funding allowed us to purchase the first 50 solar-powered kiosk that we deployed. 

Impacting the lives of millions of Nigerians who are currently living in rural communities, and who do not have access to basic economic structures needed to defeat poverty, require support from organizations with similar interest. Achieving our long-term plan of providing one million rural dwellers with access to financial services and economically empowering them in the next 5 years require funding of up to US$9,000,000. This sum allows us to purchase more kiosks, which we can deploy in numerous rural locations.

The peculiarity of our target market, means that our margins are very minimal, which is why we would require blended financing of grants and debt with a maturity period of up to 10 years. 

Our budgeted expenses for deploying next one year, considering an exchange rate of $1/N360

The objective of this application is to raise funding and access key partnerships for the project. The funds will be channeled into the production and deployment of solar powered kiosks to new rural locations across the country. This will ensure that more rural people and communities are financially included and economically empowered, hence reducing exclusion rate.

As a result, we can improve the overall financial awareness of residents of the communities, where deployed. The solar kiosks will also serve as the sole or main power source for basic electronic equipment, thus improving standard of living for residents and fostering economic activity.

Bank Your Village is an off shoot of a parent organization, but it runs a business model that structures it as an independent and sustainable project.

Deploying a solar kiosk about costs US$6,400. To help us achieve our goal of impacting at least one million rural residents in five years, provide clean energy solutions, promote financial and economic inclusion and contribute to the growth and development of the country, we need your funding support and partners that can drive down cost of building and deploying kiosks.

We are interested in partnering with organisations who can build and deliver the kiosks at a cheaper rate than the existing vendor. We also seek technical partners who can provide the hardware like tablets, used by agents at the kiosk. We are seeking partners who share our passion for development, who are willing to build durable but low-cost products, which are fit for the Nigerian terrain. Cheaper kiosks and hardware will help us reach more communities and excluded rural dwellers.