By Adedapo Adesanya
The value of financial transactions carried out via mobile transactions amounted to N1.4 trillion from January to July 2020 as more Nigerians had to use the medium due to the limitations brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.
The figure indicated a 384 per cent rise compared to N289 billion recorded in the same period of 2019.
According to the e-payment data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS), the amount transferred through mobile platforms in the last seven months has surpassed the total value of mobile transfers recorded in the 12 months of 2019, which stood at N828 billion.
NIBSS revealed that the volume of the mobile interscheme transactions also rose by 485 per cent from 10.9 million recorded between January and July 2019 to 63.8 million in the same period of 2020.
In a breakdown of the seven months figures, the financial body disclosed that the sum of N133.2 billion was transferred via mobile in January this year.
In February, transactions worth N148.3 billion were carried out, while in March, a total of N169.8 billion was recorded as mobile transfers.
In April, a total of N172 billion was transferred over mobile, while the figure stood at 230.2 billion in May.
The steady rise continued well into June and July as they rose to N245.9 billion and N275 billion respectively. This means July has recorded the highest transactional value so far.
The NIBSS data showed that electronic payments through the various platforms made available by banks and facilitated by system sustained their gains in the period under review. For instance, transactions over Point of Sales (PoS) rose by 41 per cent as the value of transactions on the platform across the country stood at N2.4 trillion in the seven months, compared with N1.7 trillion recorded in the same period of last year.
The NIBSS data showed that in January 2020, N313.4 billion worth of transactions were carried out over the PoS, an amount which is 41 per cent higher than the N222.9 billion recorded in January 2019.
In February 2020, the value grew by 69 per cent from N193.4 billion in 2019 to N326.0 billion. In March 2020, N368.9 billion worth of transactions were conducted, an amount which is 70 per cent higher than the N217.5 billion recorded in 2019.
By April, the value of transaction declined slightly to N272 billion, this was, however, higher than the N246 billion recorded in April 2019 by 11 per cent.
This changed in May as transactions worth N358 billion was recorded, a 39 per cent growth over N257.7 billion recorded in the same period last year.
The value of PoS transactions in June stood at N364.7 billion, which was 48 per cent higher than N245.9 billion recorded in June 2019. In July, the value jumped to N416.7 billion, a 49 per cent growth over N279.5 billion recorded in the same period last year.
In terms of volume of transactions, the e-payment platform also recorded 46.9 per cent increase as the volume of the PoS transactions for the seven months stood at 332 million compared with 226 million recorded in the same period of last year.
Analysis of the monthly volume showed that in January, the total volume of PoS payments was 41.30 million; 46.07 million in February and 52.25 million in March 2020. In April, the volume dropped to 40.8 million while it increased to 48.3 million in May. By June, the transaction volume rose to 49.4 million, while 53.9 million was recorded in July.
Out of a total of 548,592 terminals registered by Nigerian banks, only 360,534 had been actively deployed for use as of July, NIBSS data showed. This indicated that 188,058 PoS terminals were inactive.
