First Bank of Nigeria Limited has organised a joint seminar with sub-Saharan African banking and telecom regulators to promote financial inclusion through digital innovations in sub-Saharan Africa.

The event which was held in Lagos recently was themed “Advancing ePayment and Digital Innovations in Africa- Evolution of Nigeria’s Payment Systems”.

The seminar was organised to provide key officers of regulatory authorities in these markets – notably locations with FirstBank subsidiaries; Ghana, Senegal, DRC, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Guinea – a platform to get familiar with developments in the Nigerian payment systems and digital products industry thereon replicating and adopting the lessons from the seminar with a view to bolster the finance industry in their respective countries.

Key players and regulators in the finance and digital banking ecosystem at the event included: Agada Apochi, Managing Director/CEO, Unified Payment Services Ltd; Mike Ogbalu, CEO, Verve International; Musa Jimoh, Deputy Director, Payments System Policy and Oversight, Central Bank of Nigeria; Premier Oiwoh, Managing Director, NIBSS; Bashirat Odunewu, Group Executive, International Banking Group, FirstBank and Adesola Adeduntan, CEO, First Bank of Nigeria Limited amongst others.

Speaking on FirstBank’s leading role in promoting digital banking and financial inclusion across the country, Adeduntan said, “FirstBank by any measure has been a success story as far as digital banking is concerned. Today, we have more than 8.5million people on our USSD *894# banking platform, more than three million people on our Firstmobile platform.”