A staggering 39.5 million Nigerians are not participating in any financial services system in the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said.

The apex banks said the figures include insurance services, pension and banking services, making one of the highest figures in sub-saharan Africa and troubling being the largest economy in Africa.

While the banking system enjoys some relative positivity, the CBN said a far greater numbers of persons were excluded from insurance and pension services. These two sub-sectors of the financial system remain even more troubling experts say.

Speaking at the micro insurance fair in Lagos, Mr. Olayinka Peters, representing the CBN, attributed the development to apathy to insurance in while pervasive ignorance as well as lack of trust and financial education are the causative factors.

Peters however said for these challenges to be surmounted, both the insurers and the CBN must put their hands on deck and collaborate

He pointed out that insurance in particular has failed to provide quality data on the evidence of data usually published by the CBN.

Specifically, Peters said data on insurance often provided by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), is of poor quality pointing out that it lacked information on number of women , number of men and children that have insurance cover.

This is in addition to the exclusion of sector by sector insurance activities such as agric sector insurance from the data, he said.

On the way forward, he called on the commission and umbrella body of insurance underwriters, the Nigeria Insurers Association to avail the apex bank with quality data that will enable it give adequate attention to insurance and come up with strategy on how to improve on the performance of the sector which after its century of operation in Nigeria contributes below one percent to the National GDP.