As the need to ease the traffic congestion in Lagos State grows stronger, the State Government is looking for alternate means of transportation to reduce the number of road users and therefore, minimize the impact of many vehicles on Lagos roads. Apart from the railway that is still under construction, the waterways have become a viable option to the roads.

The Lagos State has consequently purchased 5,000 drones to monitor activities in the waters and increase the safety of commuters who are embracing water transportation.

Boat accidents and lax rescue operation have been the bane of water transport growth. Last year alone, Lagos witnessed a number of boat mishaps that notably discouraged commuters from ferrying. A notable accident happened in Irewe community, claiming three lives while two others were declared missing.

The State Government is poised to eliminate all the stigma holding commuters back from using the waterways, and the drones have come in handy for effective surveillance that will facilitate fast emergency responses at every given time. With 5,000 drones, cases of avoidable accidents and deaths will be curtailed and more people will be encouraged to embrace the water transport system.

The State Government is currently enjoying the patronage of about 70,000 commuters daily and 1.5 million monthly, according to the director general of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Femi Oke-Osanyintolu. Femi explained that the drones have been connected to the State Command Control Center with Close Circuit Television Camera (CCTV) and mobile CCTV equipment to monitor activities in the waterways to ensure the safety of boat passengers.

He added that other equipment such as jet skis, ambulance and rescue boats have been purchased and added to LASEMA centers across the state to ensure effective safety operations. The development has been seen as nice gesture at a time when Lagos State is pushing through overwhelming traffic situation.

Lack of alternative to road transportation has been pointed as the major factor in traffic congestion in the state. With the newly acquired drones, commuters will be given a sense of security and assurance of rescue in the case of accident. And that will enable many to ply the waterways, reducing the numbers of vehicles on the roads.

Meanwhile, the State Government has been encouraged to apply drones for other security activities in the state, especially the pipelines. Two days ago, pipeline vandalism in Abule-Egba area of the state led to inferno that resulted in the death of many and loss of property. That isn’t the first time the people around pipeline areas experienced avoidable tragedy like that.

In December 2006, about 269 people were burnt to death when a ruptured pipeline busted into flames in Abule-Egba Lagos, several others were injured and properties worth millions of naira were destroyed. Most of the victims had gone to scoop fuel from the ruptured pipeline and consequently ignited fire that consumed them.

In July 2019, about two people lost their lives and properties were consumed when a pipeline fire gutted Abule-Egba area of Lagos. The incessancy of pipeline originated fire-tragedy has necessitated the call on Lagos State Government to explore other means of keeping people away from the pipelines.

The Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corp (NSCDC) in 2016, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Solid Minerals and Ministry of Interior, to protect all solid minerals sites in the country.

The NSCDC set up a department known as Solid Minerals Defenders, who were primarily saddled with the responsibility of safeguarding all mineral mining sites which includes pipelines.

The Solid Mineral Defenders have since then provided some measures of security around different mining sites across the country, and effected arrests of trespassers.

But so far, unrelenting cases of vandalism are indicating that the Solid Mineral Defenders need help. Deployment of drones will ensure 24 hours surveillance of the pipelines and effect quick emergence responses when necessary since it will use its aerial views to cover areas that may be difficult for human eyes to reach.

The loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) is used to assess a bank’s liquidity by comparing a bank’s total loans to its total deposits for the same period.

In developing economies, the key to socio-economic growth is access to finance, but the challenge is to increase loans to individuals and SMEs without suffering the fall-out of bad debt.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) increased the minimum loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) of commercial banks from 60 percent to 65 per cent in the latter part of 2019.  According to a Bloomberg report, the measure was among a raft of regulations aimed at forcing banks to boost credit, mainly to farmers, small-and-medium-size businesses and consumers.

The loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) is used to assess a bank’s liquidity by comparing a bank’s total loans to its total deposits for the same period. The LDR is expressed as a percentage. If the ratio is too high, it means that the bank may not have enough liquidity to cover any unforeseen fund requirements. Conversely, if the ratio is too low, the bank may not be earning as much as it could be earning.

According to the report, Nigeria’s banks are some of the most reluctant lenders in major emerging markets, with an average loan-to-deposit ratio below 60%. That compares with 78% across Africa, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, with 90% in South Africa and about 76% in Kenya. Compare this with developed markets such as the UK, which according to Statista.com, states that Shawbrook Bank’s loan to deposits ratio on the British market between 2012 and 2016 increased from 74 percent in 2012 to 102.7 percent as of 2016.

The Director General, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mr. Muda Yusuf, had stated that the greatest challenge business operators in the country have been facing   over the years was access to credit, which he said had resulted to huge financing gaps.

In order to expedite this Loan to Deposit Radio, new digital banks and progressive lending institutions in emerging economies are looking at using technology to expedite the process, such as digital scoring methods based on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, where smartphone device metadata solutions, such as offered by CredoLab and other providers, is used to assess credit-worthiness instead of traditional methods.

Tarun Kumar Kalra, Global Head of Sales at CredoLab cited a successful example in Indonesia, which has one of the largest pool of unbanked customers in the world. One of the top 10 Indonesian banks serving over 2 million customers wanted to leverage the opportunities in this pool of unbanked customers. The bank had a comprehensive array of products and services being delivered through physical branches, mobile and web banking.

The bank’s mandate was to increase the number of loans it disbursed to the new-to-bank (NTB) customers by using an underwriting process that was fair to the applicants and yet highly predictable of their behaviour,” he said.

There were several challenges, such as increasing approval rates, 85% of the applicants being rejected and the low predictability of existing underwriting process,” he added. “The bank solved this problem by introducing digital scorecards based on smartphone device data, which led to a  +107% approval rate, a user adoption of 61% and an average of 5 seconds to approve the application.”

Kalra said that what’s noteworthy in the deployment of this solution was the short period of 2 weeks that it took for the bank to implement the new credit scoring system, as there were no development time or costs, while at the same time meeting local data security and privacy laws and regulations.

Asked about the uptake of digital smartphone metadata credit scoring methodology, Kalra responded that over 61 lending institutions have adopted CredoLab’s technology across emerging economies in the Asia Pacific region.

“With our launch into Africa, specifically in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya last year, we already have 3 major traditional and digital banks leveraging the technology in South Africa. Financial institutions in Nigeria and Kenya are investigating this technology as a secure and sustainable way of expanding credit into the unbanked markets, and raising banks’ Loan to Deposit Ratio while minimising risk,” he concluded.

Source: CredoLab