According to the latest CBN financial inclusion report, overall progress towards achieving the Nigeria Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) fell short of the annualized target in 2017. The World Bank’s Findex database also shows that ownership of an account with a financial institution or a mobile money provider dropped by 4 percentage points from 44% in 2016 to 40% in 2017¹. The gender disparity in account ownership is greatly manifested, with 51% men owning an account compared to 27% women. Although critical themes were outlined to scale up financial inclusion targets in 2017, factors such as religious and cultural bias to the uptake of financial products, worsening levels of unemployment, and high levels of informality in the economy remained setbacks toward achieving higher rates of financial inclusion in Nigeria.