‘Cashless Nigeria’ spikes ATM payments to ₦2.6 trillion at mid-2016

Nigeria recorded ATM transactions totalling ₦2.6 trillion in the first six months of 2016 in a major boost to the Cashless Nigeria policy hoped to make more people embrace electronic payment channels, statistics obtained by Technology Times from Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) have revealed.

At the end of June 2016, ATM transactions in Nigeria also recorded a 26.9% increase against ₦1.9 trillion during the corresponding period of 2015.

This rising tide of cashless money adoption by Nigerians is one of the key highlights from the NBS report of electronic payment channels in the Nigerian banking sector released by the national agency responsible for development and management of official statistics in the country.

[quote font=”georgia” font_size=”22″ font_style=”italic” align=”left” arrow=”yes”]The portion of cheque transactions recorded in first half of 2016 recorded a “significant decline” when compared to about 16% that the paper-based instrument accounted for in first half of 2015 when it recorded ₦3.2 trillion transaction.[/quote]According to the report, financial transactions through electronic platforms rose to ₦30.5 trillion in the first half of 2016, which is about 75% higher than ₦19.3 trillion recorded in the corresponding period of 2015.

Also, about ₦33.8 trillion was recorded as total transactions on all channels through the Nigerian banking system in the first half of 2016 with cheques accounting for ₦3.3 trillion or about 10% of the total transaction volume.

The portion of cheque transactions recorded in first half of 2016 recorded a “significant decline” when compared to about 16% that the paper-based instrument accounted for in first half of 2015 when it recorded ₦3.2 trillion transaction.

The NBS report also indicates rising adoption of the cashless banking system introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2012 to drive electronic payments across the financial services industry.

Transactions with point of sale (POS) payment systems also hit ₦30.4 billion while National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) banking system transactions also totalled ₦76.1 billion at the end of first half of 2016.

The NBS report also reveals that ₦67.1 billion was transacted using the Internet (web) transfer payment system while e-bills payment transactions accounted for N171.2 billion.

According to NBS, a total of N19.2 billion was spent in transactions using  Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System( NIBSS) Instant Payment (NIP) method within same period.

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