The growing patronage of POS and other e-payment network across the country by Nigerians is giving a boost to electronic payment system as many are avoiding going to queue outside the banks. According to data generated by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS) transactions worth N32.8 trillion were performed electronically in September through the NIBSS Instant Payment platform (NIP). This brings the total value of e-payment deals in the last 9 months to N271.5 trillion . Year on year, the e-payment value increased by 39.5% compared with the N23.5 trillion recorded in September last year. The September 2022 figure was, however, a 1.2% decline compared with the value of electronic payment transactions recorded in the country in August, which stood at N33.2 trillion. The surge in electronic transactions shows that more Nigerians are embracing the cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
According to NIBSS, the value of the e-payment recorded was a reflection of the increase in the volume of deals within the month. The NIP volume rose to 438 million in September, showing a 48% increase over 296 million recorded in the same period last year. An analysis of the 8 months of data just released by NIBSS showed that the NIP platform recorded N26.6 trillion transactions in January. Year on year, this was a 43.7% increase over N18.5 trillion recorded in the same month of last year. Similarly, in February, deals worth N27.2 trillion were sealed over the electronic platform. Compared with February 2021 when N18.3 trillion was recorded, this represented 48.6% growth.
In March, the platform recorded N31.8 trillion in transactions, a 44.5% increase over the N22 trillion recorded in the same month last year. The value of transactions on the NIP platform stood at N29.2 trillion in April this year. This also shows a 41.6% increase over the N20.6 trillion recorded in April 2021. In May, the value of e-payment transactions stood at N29.6 trillion, a 43% increase compared with N20.7 trillion recorded in the same period last year. The NIP transactions rose to N31.7 trillion in June 2022, a 37% growth over N23.1 trillion posted same time in 2021. The data for July also reflected a 31% increase from N22.4 trillion last year to N29.3 trillion this year. For August, the value of e-payments in Nigeria increased by 50% to N33.2 trillion compared to N22.1 trillion recorded in the same period last year.
The NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP) is an account-number-based, online-real-time Inter-Bank payment solution developed in the year 2011 by NIBSS. It is the Nigerian financial industry’s preferred funds transfer platform that guarantees instant value to the beneficiary. According to NIBSS, over the years, Nigerian banks have exposed NIP through their various channels, that is, internet banking, bank branch, Kiosks, mobile apps, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), POS, ATMs, etc. to their customers.
