By; GRACE JAMES, Kaduna
While assuring that it’s doors would always remain open in welcoming new members to its fold, the. Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in NIgeria (AMMBAN) Kaduna State Chapter has vowed to ensure safeguarding themselves from any form of financial wrong doing in course of their operations.
Chairman Kaduna State AMMBAN, Alhaji Muhammed Bala, expressed this while delivering his welcome address at its maiden seminar with the theme: “Financial Inclusion Beyond Cash-in, Cash-Out (CICO), Breeding A Collaborative Ecosystem, held on Wednesday in Kaduna.
“Our door is always left open as we welcome new entrants and available to accept innovations, suggestions, and even constructive criticism in a bid to accelerating digital economic development.
“Meanwhile, AMMBAN shall continue to inculcate our members the required discipline in safeguarding themselves from any form of financial wrong doing in line with the federal and state governmentprinciples.
“Therefore, I can assure you that we are working day and night to solve related issues arising in the course of our activities, and you can equally reach out to us via our social media handlesour website and emergency help line www.ammanigeria.org, 07048777172,” he said.
According to him, the Kaduna State chapter is under the Umbrella ot AMMBAN Nigeria that has National secretariat in Lagos and the association is being led by Mr. Victor Olojo as the National President.
“Furthermore, AMMBAN Kaduna state chapter has the same structure as the national body where we are solidly committed to delivering our sole responsibilities in dealing with mobile money and agency banking to the rest of the populace.
“This actively illustrates that our contribution to financial industry particularly in Kaduna State, knowing fully well that the growth of mobile money is positively increasing towards the actualization of financial Inclusion’s target in Kaduna State and Nigeriaas a whole.
“As a result of that 50% increase in mobile money transactions and over two million new users as at2018 according to the Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System (NIBSS),” he pointed out.
According to him, this shows that their actIvities as a mobile money and bank agents association is not just Cash In-Cash Out dealings in the financial system.
“Moreover, AMMBAN Kaduna State will continue and always willing tocollaborate with various government agencies in establishing good rapport between them and eitizens to curtail financial malpractices and other fraud related activities in the system.
“Therefore, this seminar serves as the herald to our members and other non-registered members that are emphasizing and complying with the rules and regulations setout by the regulators, is of paramount importance.
“As we all know, AMMBAN most especially Kaduna State chapter iscommitted to overseeing all activities of its members arebased on transpareney and backed by law of the land,” he explained.
Alhaji Bala said that AMMBAN Kaduna State chapter is relatively happy for its members who have recently benefited from the federalgovernment’s five million Naira loan in order to enroll citizens and provide them with national identification number.
“As the chairman of this great association, I would like to reaffirm that our activities are not just dealing in financial transactions as I said in the beginning.
“Since inception of our association, we achieved and continue to record massive successes in the area of Bank Verification Number (BVN) and National Identification Number (NIN) as well as SIM cards registrations.
“In the same vein, we experience another milestone in securing and distribution of the point and sale of machines POS unlike inthe past where acquiring of POS by individuals then had been verydifficult and time consuming but with the proliferation of the machines by our mighty association, I can now say we have seen the light of the day despite some challenges being experienced in the system,” he said.
AMMBAN appreciated the Kaduna State Government, the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Transact, Nigeria Inter-banksyettlement System Plc, (NIBSS) First Bank of Nigeria, Access bank of Nigeria, MTN Nigeria, Sterling Bank, Guarantee Trust Bank (GTB),Bankly and Moniepoints, ‘amongst others, for what he described as “unrivalled support given to us whenever is needed.
“We look forward to continuing engaging with you in our related activities until the set targetgoals are actualized,” he stressed.
The National President AMMBAN was represented by Alkassim Awwal Garba at the seminar.
