Akinmade: Unity Bank’s Women Empowerment Initiative Has Been Successful

The Divisional Head, Retail SME and E-business, Unity bank, Funwa Akinmade in this interview with Kayode Tokede and some select journalists spoke on the bank’s Yanga initiative targeted at market women across the country. He expressed that the initiative has attracted more women to the financial inclusion of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Excerpts

Give us a snapshot of how far the Yanga product has gone since it was launched in November 2021?

Yanga was launched in November 2021 and 2022 makes it exactly a year. Yanga was launched in four geo-political regions. We launched it in Nasarawa, Oyo, Uyo and Gombe. Gombe was for North East and so on and so forth. We did that because we didn’t want it to be seen as a Lagos product. A number of people in the industry always say all the banks do things only in Lagos. We don’t want that to be our strategy and so we took Yanga by Unity bank to the marketplace across the country. We did not launch it in any expensive hotels, as we launched it at market locations and we had market women directly attended to and some state government officials were present during the launching Yanga has been fantastically successful. In terms of the number of accounts, the two figures that I can give you showed a mass acquisition across two states. We’re working with the Katsina state government where over 30,000 women have not only opened the Yanga accounts, they’ve been carded, and they’re up and running. In Plateau state, we have over 45,000 customers are under the Yanga product by Unity Bank. These are actual numbers that have been banked, accounts opened and cards issued to them and it’s been a fantastic experience with a few learning points. But overall, we’ve met our budget and is not just about us as Yanga is a win for the banking sector, women, and win also for CBN. So all the accounts that we’ve opened are people who did not have bank accounts before so when we’re opening Yanga, we take the bank to the market. We create what we call a Yanga woman as a female banking agent in each location so that anything that you are doing, you can do it through the Yanga agent.

Why are women only participating in the Yanga initiative of Unity bank?

Based on the figures from CBN in 2020, more than 52 per cent of unbanked people in Nigeria are women. More men than women have bank accounts. So, we sat down and worked for six months with Lagos Business School, did a lot of research in 18 cities and we did focus groups. Everything about Yanga is driven by research including the features, locations launched, and the name. As you likely know, Nigeria has three large components of Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa. So which word applies to all of them.? Yanga was the name women loved the most and the reason it was picked.  As we have 65 per cent of men banked, we have less than 45 per cent of women banked. Number two, the market woman has been left hanging in all of these as there is no product by any bank that tackles market women. There women are there across the country and they have been strong demand for products that can take care of their needs. For CBN, the women unbanked needed to be banked. So, it’s to meet a need and to create what I call a win structure. It is a win for Unity Bank, win for the woman and win for Nigeria.

Do you have an issue with Know-Your-Customer during the process of getting these women on board?

The CBN has made our lives easier. In 2013, they launched something called the tiered KYC guidelines, which was finalized and finetuned in 2015. So we have tier one, tier two tier three customers. Tier one means I can open an account once I have my passport photograph, basic information such as a home address, Biometric Verification Number (BVN) and my full name. Then, there’s tier two, which has Identification (ID) but no references. So if you have any of the four statutory pieces of ID card; voters card and NIN, passport and driving licence, you’re fine. About 99per cent of the women open tier one accounts which has the lowest level of KYC where they cannot keep more than N300,000 in their account. This is what they need. Because we’re talking about market women, not big women that own a shop, just the regular woman selling shoes or something small. There are some of them who indicate that they want the higher version of the Yanga account. So the way it works, is anybody can open this account on day one and you get your account number within five minutes. So if you don’t have BVN, we will enroll you and tie your account to BVN. Now if you decide on that I don’t want this tier one account and want tier three. All you need to do is to give us your ID by visiting the nearest Unity Bank. Give us your ID and do your BVN as we will upgrade you as your account number remains the same. Yanga is an entry point to the financial system. 

Why would customers leave other banks’ products and bank on Unity Bank’s Yanga product?

We have three added advantages that no other bank has. We don’t bank you and run away. So once a quarter, we gather the women in a market place and do capacity building. Our capacity building is in two areas. We have people that come to talk to you about how to run your business and how to have a bank account. We also have an agreement which is the second value add with two licensed and established Health Management Organization (HMO) approved by CBN and NAICOM. So, we give our customers health talks at least once a year and they also offer free health checks. If you open a Yanga account, you are enrolled on the scheme, where you pay the minimum amount possible to get a health management facility and it grants you access to any one of 4,000 hospitals; both private and general hospital across Nigeria. The third one is we create agents which will call Yanga women in those areas. So, if a market woman is in our Iddo branch, you have no business withdrawing money from our branch in Iddo. If you need to withdraw money, you will need to visit any Yanga dealer in your area and the same is applicable to savings. It’s also good for the Yanga woman because he’s getting more business from that immediate maker space and no other bank has provided such a service as we speak.

When are you commencing loan disbursement?

For loans, we plan to do the first quarter of 2023. Since we launched Yanga, it has undergone a process. The HMO scheme just launched in August and we don’t want to rush everything at once. But hopefully, February next year, microloan offering would be ready. So, we are leveraging and adding on so many other bits and pieces, but we want them to enjoy the basic services. We issued them with a dedicated debit card, which has a unique design. Our debit card also grants them access to HMO. The last five digits on the debit card are their HMO number. We killed two birds with one stone with our Yanga debit card.

Is Yango Unity Bank’s touchpoint to retail banking?

To answer that question, our motto in mind is to succeed in becoming Nigeria’s retail bank of choice. So we have programs planned for children, teenagers, and youth, which you call a unifier and companionship and then we have for youth. This one is for women and what we have done is do research and say what women need. We don’t want to throw a product because it’s part of our vision to be Nigeria’s retail bank of choice. So, we have different segments that we are dealing with and offering services to and this is one of them, but this is a very key one for us.

How has the severe economic challenges impacted retail banking?

It has impacted the women very much but it has not impacted our Yanga business because people need to run bank accounts. But it has impacted the women since it has affected their purchasing power. It has impacted on their ability to save more money. The inflation rate, among other, is affecting everybody across all works of life in Nigeria but it hasn’t had so much impact on the Yanga business. The truth is that they would have more money in their accounts when things were easier but there’s no need to save if you’re hungry.

How do we make retail banking more functional in Nigeria’s economy?

The first thing is what people really want; banks will need to give it to them. Which is why we take a research-driven approach. It’s important to sit down and listen to customers. By listening, we can be able to meet them at the points of their needs.

In the next five years, where do you position Yanga?

We foresee in the next three years that Yanga would become the household name for market women in Nigeria. There are some products that own space and that’s where we’re taking Yanga to. Our hope and plan are that one in every three women in Nigeria would run a Yanga account and that is the vision.