The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) disclosed on Wednesday that about 54 million Nigerian adults had bank accounts, representing about 52% of the adult population in 2023 while another 5 percent adult population is captured under the “other formal” financial inclusion category.
The apex bank gave these figures at the Financial Literacy Fair organized to commemorate the 2024 World Savings Day celebrations in Abuja.
This is even as it disclosed that 11% others were categorized as being informally captured in financial inclusion while 32% or 33.9 million Nigerians were still excluded entirely from the financial system in the year under review
The CBN’s Acting Head of the Consumer Protection Department, Ibrahim Yahaya, said the savings culture had improved over the past few years.
He said: “Over time, Savings has improved. Savings have improved significantly if you look at it from the deposit side. Deposit in the banking industry has been on the increase over time.
“There are other events that may discourage people from saving. You see, in the time that we have been on this journey, there has always been that agitation that income is never enough to meet the immediate needs and wants of people. So, it has always been like that”, the banker added.
On the reason why the CBN invited school children to participate in the World Savings Day celebrations, Yahaya explained that the apex bank was celebrating the World Savings Day, an international event that beign celebrated globally on 31st of October each year with the main objective of promoting the savings culture .
According to him, it instils the culture of savings among the youth and emphasize the importance so that right from childhood youth will grow up with that discipline and having that at the back of their minds will help the parents to promote this idea of saving culture among the youths in view of the importance of savings to address some future events that may arise.
He clarified: “It is very important to save because of eventualities. You know this life is full of a lot of journeys so you need to save in case any issue arise you will be able to have something like a fallback so as to address on in case of those eventualities.
“Savings is part of deposits. Savings that you have in the bank is part of deposits and used for lending. Lending drives growth, economic growth. So what we have as deposits is what the banks use to lend out especially to the real sector that drive economic growth”, Yahaya stressed.
To ensure this, he urged school children to take savings as a habit, pointing out that “if you say you need to have plenty before you save, then you will never do it. But if you take it as a habit, keep something aside, no matter the challenges, you will see the importance tomorrow.
“Inflation has been there. I know it is more challenging these days. But if you take it as part of a life, you know, culture, a life attitude, I think you will find it very easy.
“And of course, if you have the savings, if you have something to fall back on now, of course, you know how the impact will be in these trying times”, Yahaya added.
