BACKGROUND

Financial services – i.e. credit, savings, investments, insurance, and transmission services – provide the necessary lubricant for economic growth. Increased financial service access will contribute to reducing poverty in Nigeria. Readily accessible savings services will help to smooth consumption and offer a buffer in the family events and emergencies that typically plunge poor people into chronic poverty or tip those on the edge into poverty. Properly priced and risk-adjusted insurance products can help poor people achieve many of the same effects as good savings services, albeit in a more efficient leveraged way.

Access to appropriately structured and priced credit facilities will help poor Nigerians to leverage their own meagre resources, and take advantage of entrepreneurial and income-generating opportunities
One of the biggest hurdles to improving access to finance is the absence of relevant and reliable data and analysis about how individuals and households manage finances including data about what financial products are used and why, who has access to what, at what cost and where.