Towards Optimum Service Delivery: A Geospatial Distribution of Financial Institutions in Port Harcourt Urban of Rivers State Nigeria

Financial Institutions in Nigeria are established for the purpose of rendering public and social services to the public. The cashless financial policy briefly introduced by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Central Bank exposed some flaws of Financial Institutions from discharging her responsibilities with hundreds of customers left displeased and frustrated. The demand for effective and stress free banking services by populace prompted the need for this study which is aimed to examine the geospatial distribution of Financial Institutions in the study area. The study utilizes geospatial technique which involves direct field observation with Germin 76sc GNSS receiver to obtain spatial information of Financial Institution locations in the study area. The observed data were charted in Open Street Map (OSM) of 2022 and were identified as point feature. Arc-GIS 10.1 vector based GIS software was used for processing and map production. The results revealed that commercial banks were not spread across the study area. A total number of One Hundred and Twenty Three (123) Financial Institutions were identified, this cuts across densely urbanized areas, such as Rumuokoro, Diobu, Government Reserved Area, Rumuokwuta and Town axis with very few located in Trans-Amadi axis amongst others. Clustered, linear and random distribution of Financial Institutions were also noted as no Bank was found in highly urbanized areas such as Rukpoku, Ozuoba, Ogbogoro, Rumuagholu and Rumuekini. Establishment of sufficient Financial Institutions at selected locations is essential to ensure optimum services delivery in the study area, factors responsible for the deficiency of Financial Institutions in noted locations should also be addressed.