E-payment: Electronic Transactions Hit N238.7trn In 8 Months

Electronic transactions worth N238.7 trillion were performed between January and August 2022 through the Instant Payment platform (NIP), the latest data released by Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS) has revealed.

Analysis of the figure, however, showed that transactions worth N33.2 trillion recorded in August were the highest base on month-on-month (M-o-M) for the year.

The NIBSS data also shows that the August 2022 record came as an all-time high e-payments value recorded in a month since the deployment of the platform.

Compared to the N29.3 trillion recorded in July, this shows a 13.3 per cent growth. Year on year, the e-payment value increased by 50 per cent compared to N22.1 trillion recorded in August last year.

The surge in electronic transactions shows that more Nigerians are embracing the cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

According to NIBSS, the value of e-payment recorded was a reflection of the increase in the volume of deals within the month. The NIP volume rose to 448 million in August, showing a 10.6 per cent increase over 405 million recorded in July.

An analysis of the 8 months data just released by NIBSS showed that the NIP platform recorded N26.6 billion transactions in January. Year on year, this was a 43.7 per cent increase over N18.5 trillion recorded in the same month of last year.

Similarly, in February, deals worth N27.2 trillion were sealed over the electronic platform. Compared with February 2021 when N18.3 trillion was recorded, this represented 48.6 per cent growth.

In March, the platform recorded 31.8 trillion transactions, a 44.5 per cent increase over the N22 trillion recorded in the same month last year.

The value of transactions on the NIP platform stood at N29.2 trillion in April this year. This also shows a 41.6 per cent increase over the N20.6 trillion recorded in April 2021

In May, the value of e-payment transactions stood at N29.6 trillion, a 43 per cent increase compared with N20.7 trillion recorded in the same period last year.

The NIP transactions rose to N31.7 trillion in June 2022, a 37 per cent growth over N23.1 trillion posted same time in 2021.

The data for July also reflected a 31 per cent increase from N22.4 trillion last year to N29.3 trillion this year.

For August, the value of e-payments in Nigeria increased by 50 per cent to N33.2 trillion compared to N22.1 trillion recorded in the same period last year.

The NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP) is an account-number-based, online-real-time Inter-Bank payment solution developed in the year 2011 by NIBSS. It is the Nigerian financial industry’s preferred funds transfer platform that guarantees instant value to the beneficiary.

According to NIBSS, over the years, Nigerian banks have exposed NIP through their various channels, that is, internet banking, bank branch, Kiosks, mobile apps, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), POS, ATM, etc. to their customers.