Financial literacy must be treated as national infrastructure, argues Access Bank executive

As South Africa marks National Savings Month in July, Yinka Yomi-Tokosi of Access Bank South Africa says financial inclusion must go beyond account access and become core national infrastructure. With households under cost-of-living pressure, she warns that access to banking only matters when consumers understand how to use financial services safely and confidently.

Access without understanding is not inclusion

Yomi-Tokosi, Managing Executive: Strategy & Investments at Access Bank South Africa, tells readers that a bank account alone does not guarantee participation in the financial system.

“A customer can have a bank account and still feel excluded from the financial system,”

She lists everyday knowledge that many customers lack: why fees are charged, how interest accumulates, what a debit order means, why a credit score matters, and how to identify fraud. The product may be there, but confidence is missing.

Three trends pushing the argument

Yomi-Tokosi highlights three trends she says underline the need for stronger financial education. First, she cites FinMark Trust FinScope findings showing that 75% of South African adults who borrowed did so to cover everyday essentials such as food, and that an estimated 12 million adults are classified as over-indebted. Second, she points to rising digital fraud, noting SABRIC statistics that digital banking fraud rose from 31 612 incidents in 2023 to 64 000 in 2024, with losses exceeding R1.4 billion, and that these crimes are driven by social engineering rather than technical breaches. Third, she refers to the National Treasury’s draft National Consumer Financial Education Policy released for consultation in 2026, which recognises financial education as a core pillar for improving financial wellbeing and building digital trust.

From campaigns to coordinated infrastructure

Yomi-Tokosi says financial literacy must stop being a “once-a-year campaign or a brochure handed out in a branch.” She calls for a national delivery system with sustained coordination, funding and measurement. Specifically, she proposes that the National Treasury finalise an implementation plan with named owners, deadlines, priority audiences and a public annual scorecard.

For funding, she suggests combining the Financial Sector Code requirement that financial institutions allocate 0.4% of net profit after tax with public investment in schools, community delivery and independent evaluation. She also recommends the National Consumer Financial Education Committee coordinate standards and reduce duplication.

What accountability should measure

Yomi-Tokosi says accountability should focus on outcomes: whether people understand costs and risks, seek help earlier when debt rises, use recourse channels and transact more safely. She argues results should be published by audience, language, income level and delivery channel so weak performance is visible and correctable.

Strengthening implementation of the draft policy

While supportive of the draft policy’s focus on financially capable households, MSMEs, digital literacy, coordination and monitoring, Yomi-Tokosi urges a stronger implementation layer. Her three suggested changes are:

• A funded plan assigning delivery owners and deadlines.
• Minimum national standards for plain language, multilingual content, disability access and low-data or offline delivery.
• A shared outcomes framework allowing programmes to be compared using comprehension and behaviour measures alongside reach.

She also proposes using complaints, fraud, arrears and ombud data to guide priorities by showing where consumers encounter difficulty in real customer journeys.

Embedding education in customer journeys and reporting outcomes

To make education part of everyday banking, Yomi-Tokosi says regulators should require measurable obligations on banks across onboarding, credit applications, high-risk transactions, arrears and complaints. Information provided should be plain, timely, multilingual and relevant to the decision being made.

Banks should report reach alongside outcomes such as customer comprehension; use of support or recourse; repeat fraud; avoidable payment disputes; earlier engagement after missed repayments; and harmful borrowing patterns. She stresses these results must be segmented by income, age, location, disability and digital access, and that counting brochures or messages is not sufficient proof of impact.

Tools, warnings and limits of education

Yomi-Tokosi highlights tools Access Bank uses, including DebiCheck for authenticating new debit-order mandates, biometric authentication for in-app authorisations and the ability to block lost or stolen cards, plus affordability assessments and prescribed disclosures in the credit process. She is careful to note:

“We do not have verified early-result figures to share publicly, and I would avoid attaching an untested claim of success to these interventions.”

She argues that better contextual prompts before customers accept credit or complete risky transactions are the next opportunity. Warnings should address the specific risk at the moment, explain the risk, give a clear action and provide an immediate route to verify or report, while avoiding alert fatigue.

On liability when targeted manipulation succeeds, Yomi-Tokosi says it should follow the facts and the controls available to each party. She notes that banks remain responsible for secure systems, proportionate detection and clear communication, that telecoms and digital platforms also carry responsibilities, and that targeted manipulation should not automatically imply the customer alone is at fault.

Education alongside stronger market protections

Yomi-Tokosi stresses the limits of education: unaffordable products, weak affordability assessments, aggressive sales practices and inadequate enforcement require stronger market interventions. She lists complementary measures including responsible credit assessment, product governance, restrictions where harm is foreseeable, accessible debt support and effective supervision.

To avoid widening inequality, she says interventions must reach people through branches, community organisations, radio, USSD, WhatsApp and zero-rated digital services, and that content should be multilingual and designed for different literacy, digital confidence and disability levels. Success should be measured separately for vulnerable groups. As she warns,

“An intervention that improves outcomes mainly for digitally confident, higher-income customers has not solved the national problem.”

Time-bound asks

Yomi-Tokosi sets three time-bound requests: within 12 months, National Treasury should publish a funded implementation plan with national targets and a public outcomes dashboard; the Prudential Authority and the FSCA should require bank boards to treat social-engineering exposure, fraud response and digital trust as governance and operational-risk priorities; and within six months the banking sector should adopt common standards for risk-based warnings, rapid account protection and fraud reporting.

If she could prioritise a single fundable initiative, she would back a national, zero-rated “Pause, Verify, Report” service delivered through apps, USSD, WhatsApp, call centres and community channels to let consumers verify messages or payment requests and report suspected fraud quickly.

Closing argument

Yomi-Tokosi summarises the central point:

“Digital trust is not built through technology alone. It also depends on whether people understand the risks that surround the technology. Financial literacy is not a soft add-on to inclusion. It is what helps people turn access into control.”