CBN, Banks Promote Financial Literacy

As part of its activities to mark the 2017 Global Money Week titled: “Earn, Learn, Save Money for Future Use,” top Central Bank Nigeria officials as well as chief executive officers of banks took out time yesterday to teach students across the country the benefits of financial literacy.

At the Methodist Girls High School, Yaba, Lagos, the Director, Consumer Protection at the CBN, Hajia Kadija Kazeem, who represented the Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability, Dr. Joseph Nnanna, urged the female students to imbibe savings culture.

She said the Global Money Week is to raise awareness of entreprenuerial skills among students. She said the initiative is part of the central bank’s financial inclusion drive.

Also, at the Falomo Junior High School in Lagos, the Managing Director/CEO, ProvidusBank Limited, Mr. Walter Akpani who taught the students, stressed the importance of savings.

Akpani said the mentoring programme would help the students to aspire to become great in life, adding that cultivating savings habit would help produce future entreprenuers.

Also, in Calabar, Cross River State, the Managing Director of First Bank Nigeria, Dr. Adesola Adeduntan, urged Nigerians to imbibe the culture of saving their monies in banks as a means of securing their future financially.

According to Adeduntan, saving in the bank was a better form of protection one’s financial resources from unforeseen incidents that could lead to preventable loss of fiscal cash where home banking is resorted to.

Adeduntan stated this at St. Patrick’s College, Ikot-Ansa, where the bank staged its financial literacy campaign.

Stressing that it was better to save money in the bank, Adeduntan said keeping large sums of money which ordinarily should be within the banking system amounts to hoarding, which is a form of economic sabotage.

“The circulation of cash promotes business, and a business-driven economy is the bedrock of the nation’s growth and development.

“It is tantamount to economic sabotage when individuals start hoarding money, thereby crippling businesses which depend on cash to strive”, the bank MD said.

Adeduntan pointed out that if individuals and corporate organisations do not save their monies in the bank, such practice was capable of crippling businesses as well as contributing substantially to inflation within the economy.

He said saving and managing of monies for individuals, government, corporate organisations and others was one of the major functions and responsibilities of banks stressing that First Bank has excelled in rendering these services.

``Since its establishment in 1894, First Bank has consistently built relationships with customers, focusing on the fundamentals of good corporate governance, strong liquidity, optimised risk management and leadership’’, he said.