First Bank of Nigeria Plc. was not in the initial list of 11 companies given the mobile money license but it is doing its best to catch up with the forerunners having got its license within the last couple of weeks. On Thursday, February 16, it signed separate MOUs with three leading telecommunication companies – Airtel, Glo and Etisalat to provide seamless mobile money services to millions of Nigerians.
Speaking at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the three telecommunication companies in Lagos, the four companies promised to combine their strengths to provide secure, convenient and user-friendly mobile banking services to the unbanked through the use of mobile phones.
A statement by the bank on Thursday quoted the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Bisi Onasanya, as saying mobile banking was hinged on three planks which were defined in terms of financial inclusion for the unbanked and the underbanked, person to person transaction in terms of sending and receiving money as well as retail payment for the purchase of goods and services.
He added that “With over 600 branches and thousands of business partner outlets in strategic proximity to the people, coupled with over 1,500 Automated Teller Machines including cash deposit ATMs, cardless and biometric ATMs, over five million active accounts and more than 1,200 Point of Sale terminals, FirstBank has always been at the forefront of innovative financial services solutions.”
In addition to the mobile money services, Onasanya said FirstBank had in place a world-class IT infrastructure to drive its e-payment services across transaction touch points.