To mark International Women’s Day, leading
online money transfer service WorldRemit and Access Bank celebrate the
contribution Nigerian women living and working abroad make to their home
country, with new data revealing that the gender gap for sending digital
remittances to Nigeria is rapidly closing.
Nigerians living
abroad sent home a record $25bn (NGN 9 trillion) in 2018, making Nigeria
the largest remittance receiving country in Africa. As remittances continue to
grow, women are making an increasing contribution to the country’s development.
New WorldRemit research reveals:
- The proportion of females sending
digital money transfers to Nigeria via WorldRemit has grown by 10% within the
last five years.
- 37% of WorldRemit’s customers
sending to Nigeria are female, compared to 27% in 2014.
The UN estimates that over 46% of Nigerian
migrants arefemale, with the majority living in the
United Kingdom and United States of America. Money sent from mothers, sisters
and aunts living abroad help millions of families in Nigeria pay for essential
needs such as healthcare and education.
Evidence suggests that, although female
migrants tend to earn less than their male counterparts, they send a higher
proportion of their income home more frequently.
Digital money transfer companies are improving
the access that women have to remittances and helping their money go further.
WorldRemit enables the Nigerian diaspora to send money home in a few taps from
their phones without having to travel to an agent, lowering costs and
increasing speed and convenience.
As WorldRemit celebrates International Women’s
Day, the company is offering new customers zero fees on their first transfer to
Nigeria if they use the code ACCESSBANK
when making payment.
Pardon
Mujakachi, Country Manager for Nigeria at WorldRemit, says: “Ensuring digital inclusion for
financial services for women on both the send and receive side is critically
important, as we know that when women thrive, families, businesses and local
economies thrive too.
Our data
shows that women play an increasingly vital role in Nigeria’s development by
sending money home to support education, cover healthcare costs, make
investments, and more. At WorldRemit, we’re committed to simplifying that
process, and making it faster, cheaper and easier to send and receive
remittances.”
Victor Etuokwu, Executive Director, Personal Banking,
Access Bank, says: “At Access Bank, we are very passionate about women. Hence, we have
products and services that are tailor-made for women because we recognize the
importance of their role in the family and the society at large. We have now
taken this a step further by partnering with WorldRemit, to ensure that women
outside Nigeria can seamlessly remit money to their families or for their
businesses back in Nigeria.
As
industry leaders in the use of technology to provide financial services, we are
delighted that sending and receiving money from anywhere across the world can
now be done on our platforms without any glitches, within the shortest possible
time.
WorldRemit customers complete over 1.3 million
transfers every month from over 50 countries to over 145 destinations. Ts and
Cs here: https://www.worldremit.com/iwd
Visit the WorldRemit website for more
information on how to send money to Nigeria.
END
Notes
to Editors
Calculating the gender gap:
|
Male
|
Female
|
Gender
Gap
|
% of
WorldRemit customers sending to the Nigeria (2014)
|
73%
|
27%
|
46%
|
% of
WorldRemit customers sending to the Nigeria (2018)
|
63%
|
37%
|
26%
|
The gender gap between male and female
WorldRemit customers sending to Nigeria between 2014 and 2018 has narrowed by
20%.
Media
Contacts
WorldRemit
Akinyi Ochieng
PR Manager
[email protected]
About
WorldRemit
WorldRemit is changing the way people send
money.
It’s easy – just open the app or visit the
website – no more agents.
●Transfers
to most countries are instant – send money like an instant message.
●More
ways to receive (Mobile Money, bank transfer, cash pickup, and mobile airtime
top-up).
●Available
in over 50 countries and more than 145+ destinations.
●Backed
by Accel Partners and TCV – investors in Facebook, Spotify, Netflix and Slack.
ABOUT ACCESS BANK
Access Bank Plc. is a full
service commercial Bank operating through a network of 383 branches
and service outlets located in major centres across Nigeria, Sub Saharan
Africa, and the United Kingdom with representative offices in the UAE,China,
Lebanon and India
Listed on the Nigerian Stock
Exchange in 1998, the Bank serves its various markets through four business
segments: Personal, Business, Commercial and Corporate & Investment
Banking. The Bank has over 830,000 shareholders including several Nigerian and
International Institutional Investors and has enjoyed what is arguably Africa’s
most successful banking growth trajectory in the last twelve years ranking
amongst Africa’s top banks by total assets and capital.
As part of its continued growth
strategy, Access Bank is focused on mainstreaming sustainable business
practices into its operations. The Bank strives to deliver sustainable economic
growth that is profitable, environmentally responsible and socially relevant.