According to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), in the month of May alone, Nigerians transacted over N20 trillion worth of instant payment transactions. Transactions in May jumped 0.15 percent from April, and instant payment transactions in May also witnessed a spending recovery from the month of April.
The total volume of transactions in May had a 5.4 percent increase to 279.417 million from 265.121 million. The transactions by volume of mobile inter-scheme transaction went up by 7.46 per cent from 18.36 million in April to 19.73 million in May, according to Punch News.
The value of transactions via digital payment platforms – Nigeria Interbank Settlement System Instant Payment System and Point of Sales (PoS) terminals, rose to N60.34 trillion in the first quarter of the year. Together, these platforms recorded an 87.1 percent increase in value of payments when juxtaposed with an aggregate of N32.25 trillion from the same time in the previous year of 2020, Punch News reported. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2020 with transactions valued at N53.61tn, this shows a 12.55 per cent increase.
NIP grossed N58.85tn in Q1 2021, while Point of Sales (PoS) deals were worth N1.49 trillion during the same period, the breakdown of data obtained from Nigeria Interbank Settlement System showed.
The instant payments being talked about here are transactions that were carried out by bank customers via bank branches, Internet banking, mobile apps, Automated Teller Machines (ATM) and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD).
Analysis of the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) data showed that the volume of transactions that were carried out using NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP) and PoS was 967.51 million, a 91 percent increase from 506.53 million recorded in Q1 2020.
This data showed that mobile phones and tablets as the major channels for transfer transactions.
These figures are expected to fall in the next quarter as Nigerian banks have begun to charge N6.98 for USSD banking transactions.
