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ment of the Bank’s retail banking aspirations through col- leveraged mobile technology to give unbanked and un-
laborations with third party institutions and by leveraging der-banked customers access to financial services. This
digital technologies. In line with our commitment to inno- led to the creation of digital accounts for 2 million Nigerians
vate for a sustainable future we provided 3 innovative solu- who now have access to formal financial services.
tions for the retail market and communities:
In addition, leveraging our digital collaboration with two
• Agency Banking leading e-payment companies and FinTechs, we launched a
digital lending service – ‘Pay Day Loan’ for salaried employ-
• Airtel Partnership for financial inclusion ees on October 2017. In its first 3 months, over N2.5 billion
was disbursed to 190,000 employees.
• PayDay Loan Collaboration with ePayment
providers Today, millions of Nigerian workers can now access instant
loans of up to N500,000.00 by simply dialling the USSD
Our Agency Banking business enabled us to increase our
service footprints and take banking services to the cus- code, *901*11#, from their mobile phones or by visiting
tomers in their own communities. We also made significant the PayDay Loan website (www.mypayday.ng). No collateral
progress in promoting financial inclusion by helping to re- or additional documentation is required.
duce the challenges that have kept over 40 million Nigeri- The year 2017 provided us an opportunity to set up en-
ans out of the formal banking space. abling processes and to test key concepts for the next
growth phase of our retail business. In 2018, our focus will
In the first 8 months, customers who were previously finan-
cially excluded are now able to bank with us through 2,000 be to fully actualise and optimise the benefits of the digital
agents across Nigeria and these touch points are set to initiatives to serve our customers.
grow to more than 7,000 agent outlets by the end of 2018.

To further advance the financial inclusion agenda, we

32 Access BAnk Plc
Annual Report & Accounts 2017