Wema Bank harps on savings as tool for social, economic security

Ademola Adebise, deputy managing director of Wema Bank Plc, has harped on the need for Nigerians, especially the youth, to take savings seriously in order to secure their future.

Adebise made the urge Tuesday in Benin City, Edo state while addressing students of Edokpolor Grammar School in an interactive session to mark this year’s World Savings Day.

Speaking on the theme “Our future starts with savings,” Adebise told the students that their future starts with savings.

“There is no future as secure as the future of a person who saves. Saving shows how dedicated you are to planning for the future and anyone who plans usually succeeds,” Adebise told the students.

In the course of the interaction, the DMD also answered questions asked by the students on savings to ensure they clearly understood the message.

The World Savings Day harps on the importance of savings to economic development, and provides a good platform to look at how fintech may help solve the challenge of savings.

FinTech (financial technology) is the application of technology in providing financial solutions.

Once considered more of a back-end, data center processing platform, FinTech has in recent years come to be known as the basis for end-to-end processing of transactions over the Internet especially through cloud services.

Adebisi said in its 72 years of existence, Wema Bank has encouraged the savings culture among its customers and has reinforced this position by setting up ALAT, a digital bank that offers 10% interest on savings.

According to her, there are two variants of savings on ALAT; ALAT Stash and ALAT Savings Goal. Customers can enjoy 10 percent interest on both variants regardless of despite the flexibility they offer.

Commenting on the product’s unique proposition, Funmilayo Falola, Wema Bank’s head, brand & marketing communications said the bank understood the importance of saving, hence the 10 percent interest rate it offers on ALAT Savings Goals and ALAT Stash.

“We want to encourage as many people as we can, to save, because we know our collective future depends on savings,” she noted.

The World Savings Day, supported by the World Savings and Retail Banking Institute and the European Savings and Retail Banking Group (WSBI-ESBG) is also called the World Thrift Day.

It is celebrated every year on October 31 across the world. The ceremony was introduced in 1924 for promoting the value of bank savings and re-establish citizen’s confidence in banks.