Firm Engages NIBSS, Banks on Financial Inclusion

Emma Okonji
In order to boost financial inclusion in the country, Terragon Group, a data and marketing technology company, recently hosted a chat with the new Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Adebisi Shonubi, and top executives of financial institutions in Nigeria, on the theme “Transforming customer experience on digital channels through data science and artificial intelligence”.

The discussions centred on how banks and other financial institutions can use Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence to close the financial inclusion gap in the country.

Terragon CEO, Mr. Elo Umeh, said: “Drawing on the advantages of mobile technology, messages can reach the last mile, as long as they have a mobile phone.”
The Artificial Intelligence-enabled platform is able to deliver messages to audiences and draw real-time insights from customer feedback or behaviour; while also giving banks access to Terragon’s database of over 80 million Nigerians, inclusive of Nigerians that are offline.

According to Shonubi, “Recent discourse on financial inclusion stresses that homogeneity does not exist among financial service consumers.
“Thus, there is a need to properly identify, understand and predict the lifestyles, habits, and challenges of the target market to better inform product design, which would lead to better adoption.

“Terragon’s Adrenaline makes this home-grown technology solution capability available to Financial Institutions today. This is a timely development as we push towards closing the financial inclusion gap.”

According to Umeh, “The solution also takes cognisance of low literacy levels, which has been identified as an impediment in reaching the unserved; and makes it possible to reach audiences in other formats through audio and video.”
In a joint venture with leading telecommunication companies, Adrenaline, a solution from Terragon, delivers high impact, short audio and video messages in as little as five seconds via SMS.

The key difference is that audio/video would render within the SMS environment without consuming the subscriber data or the need for a smartphone.
Other features of the solution include a 360 degree view of current and potential customers, allowing more accurate Customer Relationship Management (CRM) profiling, customised messaging leading to precision targeting, reduces wastage and increases conversion.

With Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics embedded in the platform, banks and other financial institutions can create dynamic, custom products, and messaging for their different customer segments and prospects in unserved or underserved areas as they now have full visibility into customers’ psychographics, Umeh said.