By Adedapo Adesanya
Point of Sale (PoS) transactions grew 70 percent year-on-year in March 2020, according to data from the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement Scheme (NIBSS).
In March, N368.9 billion worth of transactions were conducted, higher than the N217.5 billion recorded in the same month of 2019.
This showed a rapid increase from February 2020, which raked in a total of N326.0 billion, 69 percent higher than N193.4 billion.
In January 2020, N313.4 billion worth of transactions were carried out via PoS, an amount which signifies a 41 percent increase from the N222.9 billion recorded in January 2019.
This amounted to more than N1 trillion in total over the course of three months so far. Into the second quarter of the year, it has been projected to increase further with the directives put in place by the government for citizens to stay indoor, meaning physical banking transactions cannot take place as banks in some states have shut down, in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to NIBSS, the data showed that out of a total of 470,122 terminals registered by Nigerian banks, only 305,725 had been deployed for use as of March.
In a report by Daily Times, it was noted that the growth in transactions on the PoS terminals in the country is as a result of the expansion of mobile agent bankers in certain locations.
Citing the Shared Agency Network Expansion facility, it was stated there are plans to boost the number of agents to 500,000 across the six geopolitical regions by the end of the year.
