LAGOS–Diamond Financial institution, in collaboration with ICT firm, MTN and international nonprofit; Girls’s World Banking, is unveiling the subsequent section of the Diamond Y’ello account by way of an revolutionary partnership aimed toward deepening the monetary inclusion of girls in Nigeria.
With help from the Invoice & Melinda Gates Basis, this partnership seeks to construct understanding of what it takes to make digital monetary providers work for low-income ladies. The Diamond Y’ello account will probably be developed as a worldwide mannequin for increasing ladies’s entry to and utilization of digital monetary providers by way of simplified steps in account opening and banking transactions, utilizing cellphones.
Diamond Financial institution’s CEO, Uzoma Dozie, said that the Financial institution may be very passionate concerning the monetary wellbeing of girls, noting that the strategic focus of this mission is to reinforce the monetary life-style of girls by offering handy cellular banking providers.
“Diamond Y’ello is an account you open with out the documentation and different rigors related to conventional accounts. We’re conscious that the way forward for monetary inclusion is digital, and we goal to make use of this product to carry banking to everybody regardless of your revenue, the place you reside or the kind of cellular handset you’re utilizing,” Dozie mentioned.
Diamond Y’ello, first launched in Nigeria in 2014, is a mobile-based checking account opened immediately by way of the client’s cell phone in a couple of easy steps and is obtainable to MTN’s over 63 million subscribers and potential subscribers. Business insiders hail Diamond Y’ello account as a singular monetary product that helps not solely to optimize the usage of cellphones in finishing up full banking providers, but additionally serves as an efficient technique of spreading monetary literacy in city, semi city and distant areas.
Analysis by Girls’s World Banking has proven that girls are inherent savers, managing to save lots of a mean of 10 to fifteen p.c of their earnings regardless of low and infrequently unpredictable incomes. In line with Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO of Girls’s World Banking, Diamond Y’ello, is a handy digital banking product that gives an answer to the myriad challenges confronting low-income ladies who discover it troublesome accessing a protected place to save lots of resulting from mobility and time constraints.
“We’re thrilled to proceed our valued partnership with Diamond Financial institution to make use of expertise to carry important monetary providers nearer to Nigerian ladies. This help from the Invoice & Melinda Gates Basis provides us the chance to work with Diamond Financial institution and MTN to construct on their revolutionary product and make sure that Diamond Y’ello helps ladies all through Nigeria obtain their financial savings targets and construct a brighter future,” mentioned Iskenderian.
Iskenderian additionally famous that the collaboration will allow Girls’s World Banking to conduct in-depth analysis to raised perceive the boundaries that Nigerian ladies face when accessing monetary providers, including that they are going to work with Diamond Financial institution and MTN to develop methods to interrupt down these boundaries, together with instructional advertising and marketing approaches, coaching applications for banking brokers, cellular instruments and different product options. The teachings will probably be used as a mannequin to foster the enlargement of girls’s entry to and utilization of digital monetary providers around the globe.
In line with Ferdi Moolman, MTN Nigeria’s CEO, ICT is universally acknowledged as a major enabler of socio-economic progress and MTN is honored to play a component in quite a few methods, one in all which is that this partnership. A key strategic goal of the partnership is just not solely to stimulate and develop ladies’s entry and utilization of formal banking but additionally to assist scale back the biting impact of poverty utilizing expertise.
“Know-how is a software that ought to make life simpler for individuals, particularly low-income ladies who face many challenges with accessing formal banking providers. Our partnership aligns with MTN’s overarching technique to contribute to constructing a extra vibrant financial system, powered by expertise. That is what underpins our enterprise operations at MTN – enriching lives in step with our model essence and appearing as a catalyst for Nigeria’s socio-economic progress and growth,” mentioned Moolman.
Solely MTN subscribers have entry to a Diamond Y’ello account, which is activated by dialing *710# on any MTN line. At the moment, over 6.2 million Diamond Y’ello account holders are serviced by over 26,000 brokers. Advantages embrace quick access to the Diamond Y’ello account holders’ neighborhood, full banking providers with curiosity on account balances and entry to funds switch, invoice fee and airtime buy through software from the subscriber’s cellular machine on demand.
For extra info, contact:
Ayona Trimnell, Diamond Financial institution Plc, +234 1 448 9878, aaguele-trimnell@diamondbank.com
Funso Aina, MTN, +234 8032004168, funsoa@mtnnigeria.internet
Maura Hart, Girls’s World Banking, +1 212 556 3156 or meh@womensworldbanking.org
