According to statistics, three billion people globally are unable to access financial services. These people make up the unbanked and under-banked population and exemplify the issues surrounding financial inequality in the world.
Nevertheless, the emergence of financial technology companies within the past decade has contributed immensely to gradually closing the gaps of financial inequality. For instance, Nigeria alone has over two hundred fintech companies providing financial services to the underbanked population. And due to the competitive nature of this sub-sector, these companies are coming up with innovative solutions to meet the immediate and futuristic needs of their customers.
At Aladdin digital bank, our product offerings meet the need of Nigeria’s emerging Gig Economy, a segment of the population that has suffered the brunt of financial inequality despite contributing significantly to Nigeria’s GDP. The reason is due to the irregular nature of jobs and the income of freelance workers in the gig economy, it is hard to access finance like loans from traditional banks.
More so, it is important to note that despite the existence of Nigeria’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) since 2012 and its clear agenda to increase and improve access, usage, and quality of financial services and its product, there still exists today a vast majority of the bankable population without access to finance.
Hence, there is still a lot of work to be done amongst fintech and the government to address the issues of financial inequality. This work will involve both parties to work together to ensure no citizen irrespective of their background will have continued access to financial services.
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