By Gom Mirian
About 65 per cent of Nigerian women do not have formal financial accounts in any financial institution, a recent released report has said.
Only about 35 per cent of women age 15 to 49 have accounts with banks, said the report by the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) carried out in 2021 by the National Bureau of Statistics and technically supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
According to the report, the reasons for not having a bank account by these Nigerian women were; Lack of a nearby institution, lack of stable income, unemployed or loss of job, lack of trust for banks, religious reasons, time wasting because of documentations, no perceived benefits of banks accounts, among other reasons.
The report further explains that “61% of the women saved their money at home, 8.5% with thrift collectors, 2.7% in cooperatives groups, 0.2% in non-interest banks while 6.2% with others, adding that 89.6% of the women that save money at home are not educated.
Breaking the report down according to states, the report shows that Lagos State has the highest number of women who own banks account representing 80%, followed by Anambra State with 68.7% while Kebbi and Bauchi states were ranked lowest with 6.3% and 7.6% respectively.
The report further revealed that Kebbi State has the highest number of women who save their money at home with 94.1% closely behind Jigawa with 90.7 per cent.
