In furtherance of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) drive for a cashless economy, a group of nine Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) accounted for 71,516 Point of Sale (POS) terminals data gathered by Eyes Of Lagos has shown.
A point of sale (POS) terminal is a computerized replacement for a cash register. Data gathered by Eyes Of Lagos indicated that Diamond Bank Plc recorded the highest figure among the reviewed banks with 15,092 PoS, followed by United Bank for Africa Plc and First City Monument Bank (FCMB) with 13,500 and 12,041 PoS terminals respectively.
Closely followed is Access Bank Plc with 9,622 PoS and First Bank of Nigeria Holdings Plc with 7,048 PoS terminals. Others are Wema Bank Plc, 5,508 PoS; Fidelity Bank Plc, 3,734 PoS; Union Bank of Nigeria, 3,100 PoS and Sterling Bank Plc, 1,871 PoS.
The Nigeria Interbank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) revealed that value of PoS transactions in June 2017 raises to N107.66 billion, bringing the total of N610.11 billion value of transactions traded on PoS in six months of 2017. NIBSS had reported N91.99 billion in January and it dropped to N90.29 billion in February.
Report by NIBSS disclosed further that value on PoS transactions increased to N104.48 billion in March and N111.63 billion in May this year. The value of transactions through PoS channels across the country increased significantly by 69.2 per cent to N758.99 billion between Janaury and December 2016, compared with the N448.5 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2015, data gathered from the NIBSS revealed.
The apex bank had introduced the cash-less policy with a view to significantly reduce the volume of cash-based transactions, and PoS was one of the tools to achieve this objective. The policy was introduced for a number of key reasons, including driving development and modernisation of the payment system in line with Nigeria’s vision 2020 goal of being amongst the top 20 economies by the year 2020.
The target for Nigeria, according to CBN is to meet Brazil’s PoS deployment rate of 2,247 per 100,000 people by 2020. The initiative would lead to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contributions and job creation with a ripple effect on the economy while boosting national pride and reducing exposure of national security in the area of espionage.
As part of efforts to encourage Nigerians to widely make use of electronic payment systems, the CBN had introduced an awareness campaign for electronic payment users. A report stated that Nigeria occupies seventh position among African countries where the use of PoS form part of transactions.
According to a report by Indexmundi only 21 per cent of total transactions in the country are done through the PoS device. South Africa stands at the top with 91 percent followed by Ghana 80 percent while Tunisia is third with 79 per cent. Other countries ahead of Nigeria are Egypt, Morocco and Kenya in that order.
