Agent Banking
A banking agent is a retail outlet contracted by a licensed deposit taking Financial Institution or a Mobile Money Operator to provide a range of financial services to customers.
Agent banking is the delivery of financial services outside conventional bank branches, often using non-bank retail agents and relying on technology, such as card readers, point-of–sale (POS) terminal or mobile phones for real time transaction processing
Background
In February 2013, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) released the ‘Guidelines for the Regulation of Agent Banking and Agent Banking Relationships in Nigeria’ to deepen financial inclusion. In countries across the globe, banks are increasingly using agents to provide financial services to customers, especially for the low-income segment.
Strategy
To achieve universal access, banks will need to adopt their systems to a low-value, high-volume transactional environment and build more flexible, scalable points of services, where people can conveniently pay into or cash out from their transactional accounts.
Modality
The banks are expected to provide the service level agreement, agent banking contract, the risk management, internal control mechanism, operational procedures and the proposal for Know –Your- Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering and combating Financial Terrorism (KYC\CFT) compliance.
Operations
According to the CBN, any approved bank agents are only allowed to perform limited banking operation on behalf of their principal, including account opening, fund transfer; deposit and withdrawals; bills payment; payment of salaries; balance enquiry; generation and issuance of mini statement; cash disbursement and cash repayment of loans; cash payment of retirement benefits; Cheque book request and collection; collection of bank mails for customer and other activities to be determined and approved by the CBN.
Qualification
According to the CBN, any approved bank agents are only allowed to perform limited banking operation on behalf of their principal, including account opening, fund transfer; deposit and withdrawals; bills payment; payment of salaries; balance enquiry; generation and issuance of mini statement; cash disbursement and cash repayment of loans; cash payment of retirement benefits; Cheque book request and collection; collection of bank mails for customer and other activities to be determined and approved by the CBN.
Monitoring
To put them under close surveillance, in order to minimize the risk involved in the system, the CBN made it mandatory for the financial institutions to monitor and supervise the activities of the agents, equip itself with the information relating to the number and volume of their transactions, monitor their effective compliance with set limits and established prudential measures in each case; implement measure to control operating risk; periodic physical visit by staff or authorized persons to ensure they operate within the requirement of the law, guidelines and contract, pay special attention to their operational risk, legal risk, liquidity risk, reputation risk and ensure their compliance with the rules for combating money laundering and financial terrorism.
Requirements
How to become a Mobile Money Agent
It is very simple to become a Mobile Money Agent. You can become a Mobile Money Agent today by simply registering on this website.
To begin the process of becoming a Mobile Money Agent, please click the link below and fill out the pre-qualification form below and submit it.