The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Monday reported that instant transfer transactions in the nation’s banking system totalled N442 trillion last year A data on the electronic transactions, which captures the banking industry e-payment figures for 2019, showed that the intra bank e-payment transaction recorded the highest value with a total of N441.9 trillion from over 90 million transactions.
The apex reported further that NIP (NIBSS Instant Payments) closely followed with a total value N105.2 billion, generated from over one billion transactions. The figure is higher than the N80 billion recorded in 2018. In January 2012, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) introduced a policy on cash-based transactions, which stipulates a cash-handling charge on daily cash withdrawals that exceed N500, 000 for individuals and N3, 000,000 for corporate bodies.
The policy on cash-based transactions (withdrawals) in banks, aims at reducing, but not eliminating the amount of physical cash (coins and notes) circulating in the economy and encouraging more electronic-based transactions (payments for goods, services, transfers, etc.)
The figures have shown a steady increase in the adoption of e-payment platform from a paltry N3.8 bn in 2012, to n10bn in 2013, N19.9bn in 2014, N25.5bn in 2015, N38bn in 2016 and N56 in 2017. Consequently, the data further reflected a steady decline in the value of cheques from a high of N7.5bn in 2012 to N4.4 in 2019. Similarly, the volume of cheques also dropped drastically from 12 million cheques issued in 2012 to 7.2 million cheques issued in 2019. Another area that also recorded surge is Mobile money. It has moved from a mere N31 million in 2012 to N1.8b in 2018 and reached N5bn by the end of 2019.
ATM channels have remained somewhat flat within the period under review as it has hovered around N6.4bn in value in the last three years. The reason for this is not immediately clear and our reporter could not ascertain whether this is the peak the machines in the country could currently handle. However, analysts have maintained that e-Payments have significant economic benefits for individuals and businesses as it lowers costs for businesses because the more payments they can process electronically, the less they spend on paper and postage.
The convenience of e-payments can also help businesses improve customer retention, in comparison with those offering only traditional means of payments. The direct impacts of e-payments on a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are well known and documented.
