By Babajide Komolafe, Economy Editor

Chief Executive Officer, Guarantee Trust Holding Company, GTCO, Mr. Segun Agbaje, yesterday, advocate for drastic reduction in the cost of data as the key to achieving the financial inclusion in the country.

Agbaje stated this at the annual media parley of the company, while responding to dispute between banks and telcos over Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, USSD services and the impact of the nation’s financial inclusion goal.

Citing the example of India, Agbaje stressed that USSD is not the solution to financial inclusion.

Noting that the USSD is a clumsy technology, Agbaje averred that the best way to achieve financial inclusion is to crash the cost of data and make it affordable for everybody.

He said: “On USSD, it   is a clumsy technology, it is not a state of the art technology. For those of you who have gone to India which has the same demography as Nigeria, how many of you see USSD? 

“The future and the best way to have financial inclusion and increase literacy is to crash the cost of data, so that data becomes more affordable so that you can use a more superior technology. 

“The whole fight about USSD is a fantastic distraction for all the people and the telcos. You all miss the rising cost of data in Nigeria versus other economies like us. We have been distracted by USSD. 

“You want financial inclusion, you want to increase literacy so that the student can go online, do their term papers, learn online, then you need to bring down the cost of data. 

“You bring down the cost of data, we start to eradicate USSD, If you want to use USSD, the banks has told you, charge the users, the banks do not get any of the N6.98k even if you make it N10, they  have  said they don’t  want to be involved even if you want to collect N20, but collect it from the user, don’t come to us. 

“I keep telling anyone who cares to listen, USSD is not really the answer. For all of you who use USSD and Mobile banking, you need to get the cost of data down in Nigeria, the cost of data compared to India, the truth is that in Nigeria we are being exploited. We should have the cost of data down so that we can increase inclusion and our literacy level.”