TheCable

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says about N1.5 billion worth of transactions are done on the Point Of Sales (POS) terminal daily.

Dipo Fatokun, CBN’s director of Banking and Payment System Department (BPSD), said this in Abuja on Wednesday at the apex bank’s e-Payment Incentive Scheme (EPIS) cash reward presentation.

Fatokun said the scheme was meant to reward users of electronic payment platforms in the country and to also encourage patronage of government’s cashless policy.

He said the use of POS terminals had increased from 5,000 in 2011 to about 120, 000 desktop terminals in 2015.

Fatokun said the ratio was negligible compared to the population of Nigeria.

“Some days we have it more than that and some days we have it lower than that; but on average its N1.5 billion transactions that are done on the Point Of Sales terminal alone for which this award is being given today,” he said.

“So the number is growing and in addition to the number of the POS, we should talk of the successful transactions also increasing.

“So that shows that we are making a lot of progress on POS until we expand others; but of course there will always be room for more improvement as we go on the cashless journey.”

He added that the CBN was on the verge of introducing the Mobile POS terminal that would thrive on network connectivity and make transactions easier for both card holders and merchants.

The director also added that discussions were on with telecommunication service providers to ensure better connectivity for the electronic payment systems.

“The way the MPOS works is such that if the signal strength is not even as high as what you will need for the desktop POS,” he said.

“If the signal strength is enough for you to make a voice call, the transaction can still go through.”

Ade Shonubi, chief executive officer of Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), said the reward scheme was introduced to encourage people to use their cards at places other than the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).

“The scheme was put in place to encourage people to use their cards at merchants,” he said.

“People are more used to using their cards at ATMs and we need to encourage them to use it in places other than ATMs.

“There are two ways to drive it, either the merchants are tracked or the card users themselves want to use it.

“And we are trying to make sure both of them are incentivised to want to get cards being used so that we have less cash; all of it is toward the cashless (policy thrust).”