Claim 1: Only 34% of Nigerians have bank accounts
Verdict: Inaccurate
Context: The Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, recently stated that only 34 percent of Nigerians owned bank accounts. The governor, who made the comment when he met with the traders association in the state. He said it is a deliberate conspiracy against the All Progressive Congress (APC) that is why we came out and revealed what is going on.
Verification: Checks by CDD fact-checkers revealed that the number of active bank accounts in Nigeria increased to 133.5 million at the end of 2021, according to the data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS). The NIBSS data shows that out of the active bank accounts, individual accounts represent 92 percent, which is 122.3 million, while the remaining are corporate accounts. The figure showed an increase from 2020. At the end of 2020, total active bank accounts in the country stood at 114.8 million. This means that a total of 18.7 million new bank accounts were opened in 2021. The data also shows that the number of current accounts rose by 14 percent to 49.8 million in 2021 from 43.6 million in 2020. In the same vein, savings accounts increased by 7.8 percent to 120.4 million in 2021 from 111.7 million in 2020.
The day also showed that the number of inactive bank accounts in the country stood at 57.9 million in the year under review. From the NIBSS data, the total number of bank accounts in the country as at 2021 was 191.4 million, out of which 133.5 were actively in use. This shows an increase of 11 percent or 5.7 million in the number of inactive bank accounts for the year as the inactive ones stood at 52.2 million in 2020.
Conclusion: CDD fact-checkers verified and confirmed that the percentage of Nigerians with active bank accounts, according to the NIBSS, is 133m, which is 64 percent of Nigeria’s population and not 34 percent as claimed by Governor El-Rufai; as such, his claim is inaccurate.
Claim 2: Only 9% of Nigerians use digital platforms for transactions
Verdict: Inaccurate
Verification: According to a recent survey by Mastercard, a global payment and technology platform, 91 percent of Nigerians use digital channels, such as banking apps and websites to make financial transactions.
The survey, titled, ‘Financial Inclusion – Connecting People to Finance, Health, and Education, Nigeria has the highest usage when compared with other Middle East and African (MEA) countries, such as Kenya, which had 87 percent, closely followed by Pakistan (66%), Jordan (53%), Morocco (34%) and Iraq (27%).
Mastercard listed some of the efforts or policies MEA countries have put in place to enhance financial inclusion. For example, in Pakistan, the digitalization of financial services has resulted in 75 million active electronic wallet accounts as at June 2013.
Similarly, a data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS) revealed that transactions worth N33.2 trillion were performed electronically in August 2022 alone through the NIBSS Instant Payment platform (NIP). This brings the total value of e-payment deals in the eight months to N238.7trn from January to August 2022.
Conclusion: Following the data from relevant bodies and the volume of transactions by digital platforms, CDD fact-checkers conclude that 91 percent of Nigerians use digital platforms for transactions and not only 9 percent as claimed by the governor of Kaduna State.
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