Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) report has said that Nigeria’s electronic payment (e-payment) services, recorded transactions worth N56.85 trillion in nine months, January to September, 2018. The report showed that more Nigerians are embracing electronic payment as there was an increase of N16.4 trillion when compared to the N40.45 trillion total 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 data reported by NIBSS 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 rose from 560.86 million in 2017, to 650.06 million in 2018. The report also 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, while 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 Sept, 2018.
In the case of 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. The NIBSS report showed an increased awareness and use of technology by individuals and businesses in the country.
