Super Agents, Agents Locked in PoS Chargeback Confusion
SUPER Agents and agents under them in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) financial inclusion initiative are today locked in Point of Sale chargeback issues, which has resulted in some agents going out of business, Nigeria Communications Week has learnt.
One of the cases involves Innovectives a super- agent in Shared Agent Network Expansion Facilities (SANEF) programme and Ecosystems Hybrid Network, where Innovectives according Ecosystem have under paid her and agents
under its channel to a turn of N15 million arising from PoS chargeback between January and July this year.
Fasasi Sarafadeen Atanda, managing director, Ecosystem Hybrid Network, said the issue has lingered for this long because there is no dispute mechanism in settlement issues between providers and agents.
“The issues around PoS chargeback are beyond debit of customers as there is no complaint mechanism in place for financial inclusion services.
“In a formal banking system, there is complaint mechanism where customers are allowed to lodge complaint and tracking number given to them; if such issue were not resolved the customer can escalate it to CBN with the
tracking number.
“For Agency banking, which is informal and still financial service the mechanism of formal should not be used in resolving complaints as the scenario are different.
Responding to the claims, Emmanuel Agha, chief executive officer, Innovectives, said that what his company owes Ecosystem is N8.6million of which N2million has been paid.
“The way PoS chargeback is structured, you have to wait for the banks to pay you and this takes a long time for it to be resolved,” he said.
He added that because other agents are involved in the issues his company has started paying Ecosystem without waiting for banks to refund her, noting that the issue of
PoS chargeback with agents is not peculiar to his company but an industry issue that needs to be address.