Electronic Banking Services in Nigeria: Some Determinants and Opportunities for Households' Financial Inclusion

Economic transactions in many of the countries in Africa are still largely cash-based and many of these transactions are costly, inefficient, time consuming and sometimes risky because of the security situation in most countries in the continent. In fact, finality of payment is not always guaranteed because of potential counterfeits and the lack of financial discipline when cheques or other paper-based means of payment are used. The introduction of electronic banking services into the Nigerian banking sector has brought some respite considering the number of people now using electronic platforms such as the Automated Teller Machines (ATM), mobile phones, internet and bank websites instead of the conventional over the counter method used by most people. The result presented in here is based on secondary data consisting of 6002 respondents collected by The Financial Inclusion Insights Program, InterMedia. A descriptive analysis of data showed that the North-central (35%) and South-west (33%) geopolitical zones of the country had the highest as over one-third of the residents harnessed internet as the platform for their banking services. Meanwhile on the determinants of using electronic banking services, the result of the tobit model employed revealed age, gender, education status, and ownership of mobile phones as positive enablers and poverty status, distance to banking services and marital status as hiccups to using electronic banking services. The study therefore recommends welfare enhancement through provision of infrastructural facilities to ease access banking services, Also capacity building of respondents through education should be intensified since most of the people using these electronic platforms are those with a minimum of secondary education.