Mobile transactions volume surges 82.6% to 1.7bn in 2020

A RECENT RE PORT OBTAINED FROM THE NI GERIAN Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) has revealed that there was an acceleration in the adoption of instant payments portals in the year 2020 as the Nigerian population transitioned to other transaction channels electronically for funds and exchange in the wake of the imposed lockdowns by the government.

As a result, the volume of mobile transactions in Nigeria surged 82.6 per cent year on year to 1.7 billion in 2020 from 928.9 million in 2019. The e-payment landscape thus witnessed a significantly change on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additionally, a significant spike was observed for Internet banking transactions, as they grew to 10 per cent of the total transactions. This can be attributed to the move away from physical channels, and the branch closures experienced in key commercial hubs in the wake of the pandemic.

According to the NIBSS report, transactions through the mobile channel remains the preferred channel for Nigerians with 43 per cent of total transactions value, while Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) remains a close second with 35 per cent of transactions.

These remain largely unchanged from 2019 and therefore indicate that 78 per cent of total transfer transactions were carried out using a mobile device. Meanwhile, mobile payments and USSD channel have continued to experience steady growth, growing by 84 per cent and 80 per cent respectively year on year. With approximately 49.5 per cent smartphone ownership and an estimated 97 million mobile internet users in Nigeria, there remain the strong indicators that mobile and USSD payments will see significant growth in the short-medium term.

THE RE SPONSE FROM FEDERAL GOV ERNMENT over the comments of governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo state over the printing of currency notes to augment the amount distributed to states by the federation account allocation committee (FAAC) in March 2021 has led some economic analysts to point few loopholes as well as ineptness in government expenditures.

It was reported that Godwin Obaseki had made a revelation that government printed N60 billion to bump up money shared at the FAAC meeting which he said will take government’s total borrowings to about N16 trillion after the disbursement by the committee this April.

According to some analysts in a note to Business AM, they said the claim is justified and didn’t start today as government has allegedly used less than 50% of the sum for debt servicing.

“Well, it is sad that it took a governor to voice our current fiscal challenge out before the media and the citizens started crying to high heavens. But nothing can be farther from the truth that Nigeria is currently broke.

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