BY Oluseyi Awojulugbe
Recent data provided by the World Bank says 118 million Nigerians do not have bank accounts.
The information was made available in the latest Global Findex Database report released on Thursday at the ongoing Spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington DC.
According to the report, only 40 percent of Nigerian adults have bank accounts.
It said Nigeria and six other countries are home to nearly half of the 1.7 billion people who do not have bank accounts.
“Globally, about 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked—without an account at a financial institution or through a mobile money provider. Indeed, nearly half live in just seven developing economies: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan,” the report read.
“The gap between men and women in developing economies remains unchanged since 2011, at 9 percentage points.”
The National Population Commission (NPC) pegs Nigeria’s estimated population at 198 million, the seventh largest in the world.
The Bretton Wood institution said most people in sub-Saharan African countries save for a business in contrast to adults in high-income economies who save for old age.
“Nearly half of adults in high-income economies reported saving for old age. In developing economies only 16 percent did. Saving for a business is more common in many Sub-Saharan African economies— reported by 29 percent or more of adults in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria, for example,” the report read.
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