Reports from the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) have indicated that Nigeria’s electronic payment (e-payment) services, recorded transactions worth N56.85 trillion from January to September, last year.
The report, obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday, showed an increase of N16.4 trillion when compared to the N40.45 trillion that was recorded in the corresponding period of 2017.
The report showed that most of the electronic transactions were done through the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP), Point of Sale (PoS), Automated Transfer Machines (ATMs), Mobile Money, Electronic Bills Payment (E-Bills) and Web payments.
A breakdown of the report showed that ATMs transactions grew from N4.61 trillion in 2017 to N4.76 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2018.
Also, the volume of transactions on ATMs under the period in review grew from 560.86 million in 2017, to 650.06 million in 2018.
The report showed a rise of about N635 billion in the use of POS machines to carry out payments by Nigerians.
Under the review period, 98.73 million transactions worth N975 billion were carried out using POS in 2017 and in 2018, the volume grew to 196.83 million, valued at N1.61 trillion.
Similarly, the volume of transactions carried out by Nigerians, using mobile money rose from N795.18 billion in 2017, to N1.22 trillion as at September 2018.
Also, using the web payment channel, the total value of transactions under the review period rose from N129.24 billion in 2017 to N183.07 billion in 2018.
However, the value of such transactions on e-bill payments, which allowed customers to pay utility bills such as power, cable and so on online, declined from N420.73 billion in 2017 to N370 billion in 2018.
A financial analyst, Dr. Patricia Auta, said the NIBSS report showed an increased awareness and use of technology by individuals and businesses in the country.
Auta urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to intensify efforts on cashless economy, especially in states, to further grow the electronic payment space.
She advised banks to stay competitive and drive growth by providing innovative alternate payment channels to customers.
