President GoodLuck Jonathan has urged the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) to ensure effective implementation of policies that will complement Federal Government’s transformation agenda.
Jonathan made the call in Abuja on Tuesday at that 8th Annual Conference of CIBN, with the theme, “Positioning Nigeria’s Payments System for Global competitiveness’’.
The president was represented at the conference by the Accountant- General of the Federation, Mr Jonan Otunla.
According to the president, CIBN as a self-regulatory organisation and professional body is a major stakeholder in the transformation initiative of the Federal Government.
“The act of the CIBN has given it the powers to regulate the practice of bankers in Nigeria by setting knowledge and skills for every banker in the country.
“This is indeed a very sensitive task given the dynamic nature of the banking sector,’’ the president said.
Jonathan said the current administration had decided to focus on transforming the country based on three major pillars of job creation, increasing foreign direct investment inflow and improving the ease of doing business.
He said that the professional bodies had very important roles to play in the transformation and development of the country.
The president said the roles of the professional bodies was “Not just to provide funding to businesses or manage accounts of investors and other stakeholders’’.
He said the roles also involved their making “far reaching contributions in repositioning’’ themselves “as game changers in the affairs of the nation’’.
“Banking practice demands enormous responsibilities for the trust and confidence which the society places on the practitioners as providers of the crucial resource for commerce and industry in the facilitation of economic growth and development.
“You must be aware that banks and other financial institutions constitute a formidable group of stakeholders in a modern economy, for which society demands a high level of professional conduct and ethics,’’ he added Jonathan said that CIBN had the duty to meet the expectations of various stakeholders and make contributions in building the economy.
Also, the Minister for Communications Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson, urged CIBN to ensure establishment of cost effective infrastructure for an effective payment system.
She said that whatever payment system CIBN developed must have a good ICT infrastructure to invest in.
“I will like to enjoin the CIBN and the banking industry to ensure that they roll out a robust and cost effective infrastructure that covers the entire country,’’ she said.
She added that the second option to consider was that banks must consider the role of the telecommunications companies in facilitating the growth of mobile payments.
“You must come up with a win solution that enables the banking industry, the telecoms industry to work side by side to grow a successful mobile payment industry that will be envy of other nations,’’ she added.
Johnson urged the institute to also deliberate on e-commerce, adding that the mobile payment system would be useful when there were things to buy.
She said that Nigeria e-commerce industry was one of the fastest growing in the world and that government was looking at making it about 10 billion dollars in the next two to three years.
“However, at 10 billion dollars, we are just scratching the surface and what will even drive this industry is the capacity for low income Nigerians to make payments on this infrastructure at little or no cost.
“I will like to think about how you will do this as a banking industry for people to make payment of N100, N200 at little or no cost,’’ she said. (NAN)
