Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion Strategy has an ambitious target of including 70% of the population in formal financial services by 2020 (from a base of 30%), and reducing the proportion of financially excluded from just under half the population to one fifth. This implies including many chronically poor households.

This policy brief provides a situation analysis on financial inclusion in Nigeria, including a short analysis of how it may figure in chronic poverty, and processes of escaping poverty and impoverishment. It then goes on to assess the relevance of the four potential promising avenues identified in the global CPAN Financial inclusion Policy Guide (Smith et al 2015) for including the poorest people in Nigeria. This leads to a commentary on the e Nigerian Financial Inclusion Strategy.

Authors: Andrew Shepherd and Austine Okere, with inputs from Lucy Scott and William Smith.

Click here to download the Policy Brief: Financial Inclusion in Nigeria