Introduction: From Counting Accounts to Building Resilience
Nigeria has more banked adults than ever before, yet fewer are financially healthy. Account ownership has doubled since 2011, digital payments have become mainstream, and millions now interact daily with formal finance. On paper, this looks like success.
But beneath the numbers lies a stark reality: financial fragility is deepening. EFInA’s 2023 Access to Financial Services (A2F) survey shows that only 16% of Nigerian adults were financially healthy in 2023, down from 28% in 2020. Most households, though “included”, cannot reliably meet basic needs, recover from shocks, or plan for the future. In 2023 alone, 84% of adults ran out of money at least once, 58% sometimes went without food, and 78% could not raise emergency funds within a week.
