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Financial inclusion drive is a process of bringing people under the financial net or scope in order to ensure access to affordable and timely financial products and services is achieved.
When it is achieved to a large extent, it usually helps in financial planning and budgeting for the citizenry. Nigeria, a country with over 80 million people living in poverty and about 38 million people financially excluded, has taken up this drive passionately, but unfortunately not much has been achieved.
There are some facts that we need to accept in our financial inclusion drive as a country. These are:
We have seen a yearly increase in the volume of financial transactions with no noticeable reduction in financial exclusion rates. It means that a high volume of transactions is not directly proportional to financial inclusion rates.
So many Fintechs companies had sprung up in the last four years to join the banks in this drive with the expectation that it will have a direct impact on financial inclusion rates but to no avail.
This does not mean that these financial inclusion drivers have failed, rather it further points to us that there are lots of businesses and individuals that are not under the financial network which may depict that our financial exclusion rate is far more than the records we have.
We must quit the speculative approach to adopt a deliberate approach to financial inclusion drive. We cannot continue to expect that banks and Fintechs alone will do the needful with regards to financial inclusion without first considering its profitability.
I have said on different occasions that the financial inclusion drive is more lucrative than it presently portrays. No one wants to take the risk to unlock the treasury but everyone is waiting to see who goes first. This is understandable as no bank/Fintech can force a customer to remain a customer even if it opens the first account/wallet for such a customer.
This is where the government’s policy is expected to lead the way and unlock this treasury for financial inclusion drivers.
The Government must be deliberate enough to put up the following policies in line with financial inclusion drives to ensure that all the above-mentioned pointers are under control:
All Government Agencies, NGOs, and Politicians should also be made to comply with such policy. All payments should go through an account/wallet created for such people.
With the above mentioned policies in place, banks and fintechs will daily bring genuine numbers of the potential excluded and already-excluded population under the financial net while they continue in the business-focused financial inclusion drives.
If we are deliberate and consistent in this path, in the next few years we would see a significant decrease in the numbers of the financially excluded population.
Nigeria’s total debt rose to N33.1 trillion at the end of Q1 2021, from N32.9 trillion recorded as of the end of Q4 2020. Data from Debt Management Office (DMO) states that the federal government spent N1.02 trillion on debt serving in Q1 2021, a 36% year-on-year jump on the Q1 2020 number. As things stand, Nigeria’s debt servicing is growing faster than its revenue, creating a major paralysis.
A sum of N537.78 billion was used to service FGN Bonds in the review period. This represents a 124.6% increase compared to N239.46 billion recorded in Q1 2020.
Nigeria repaid a sum of N31.44 billion as principal repayment, while N35 billion was used to service Nigerian Treasury Bills.
In terms of external debt, $134.04 million was used to service multilateral loans, which includes $104.4 million to International Development Association, $16.21 million to AFDB, and $9.5 million to African Development Fund.
Also, $106.3 million was used to service bilateral loan agreements, while $763 million was spent on Euro bonds.
But besides these numbers, looking at Nigeria before and after the big border closures, one can see severe cracks. Though I am still expecting economists to do a deep dive, the borders could have possibly wounded Nigeria’s economy when you look at food inflation, acceleration of criminality due to food scarcity, etc.
Economically, in the last 6 years, you can divide the economy before and after the border closures.
Looking at some data from some light manufacturers who export to Cameroon, Benin Republic, etc, there is clear evidence that during the closure, most found alternatives – and Morocco captured most of the opportunities. Post-closure, most have not been unbundled.
Possibly, Nigeria is a net gainer in the region and border closure was an own-goal. If that is the case, we must not repeat the same again. That is critical as we cannot afford to budget N13.6 trillion and waste N4 trillion on just servicing debts as we continue to look for money to hold the economy together.
The away goals rule has been scrapped for all UEFA club competitions from next season, it has been confirmed.
The away goals rule, initially used back in 1965, was brought in to determine a winner in two-legged knockout ties where the two teams had scored the same number of goals on aggregate over the two matches. The winner, in such a scenario, was the team who scored more goals in the away leg.
But the rule has come in for criticism in recent years with home advantage no longer as strong across the game and many believing the rule to be inherently unfair on those teams playing second in a two-legged tie.
“The impact of the rule now runs counter to its original purpose as, in fact, it now dissuades home teams – especially in first legs – from attacking, because they fear conceding a goal that would give their opponents a crucial advantage. There is also criticism of the unfairness, especially in extra time, of obliging the home team to score twice when the away team has scored.
“It is fair to say that home advantage is nowadays no longer as significant as it once was. Taking into consideration the consistency across Europe in terms of styles of play, and many different factors which have led to a decline in home advantage, the UEFA Executive Committee has taken the correct decision in adopting the view that it is no longer appropriate for an away goal to carry more weight than one scored at home.”
Uefa cited statistics since the mid-1970s which showed how the gap between home and away wins had reduced. It talked about better pitch quality, standardized pitch sizes, and even VAR as factors in the decline of home advantage.
Paris Saint-Germain’s away-goals victory over Bayern Munich in last season’s quarter-finals will go down in history as the last in the Champions League before the rule change.
The rule has led to some dramatic moments in recent years, including Tottenham’s stoppage-time success over Ajax in the 2019 Champions League semi-finals.
The abolition may be linked to UEFA’s big restructure plan for European football. The plan became well known in April, when select football clubs announced the formation of European Super League (ESL) in an attempt to break away from UEFA and start a more lucrative league.
It was revealed that UEFA has been working on a new plan that will see the Champions League restructured from 32 to 36-team, and had planned to sign off on it before the ESL. The plan will include a proposal to collapse the group stage into a single table instead of the current groups of four teams.
Under the proposal, teams would play 10 matches each in the group stage rather than the six currently being played, and there would be a playoff round before the last 16. The scrapping of the away goal rule comes barely two months after the Super League attempt was quashed, and it suggests that there could be more changes in the pipeline.