The adoption of the e-payment system in Nigeria, where consumers can pay for goods bought without physical cash, has continued to witness a surge of e-payment transactions in the country.
According to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS), it revealed that transactions worth N33.2 trillion were performed electronically in August through the NIBSS Instant Payment platform (NIP).
This brings the total value of e-payment deals in the last 8 months to N238.7 trillion
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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% growth. Year on year, the e-payment value increased by 50% compared to N22.1 trillion recorded in August last year.
The recent surge witnessed in electronic transactions in the country, reveals that a large percentage of Nigerians are embracing the cashless policy introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in the year 2011, to curb excesses in the handling of cash in the country.
It is interesting to note that cashless transactions in Nigeria rose by 40.66 per cent year-on-year to N210.08 trillion in the first seven months of 2022.
Also, financial inclusion has been recognized as a very important factor for e-payment adoption, because apart from mobile banking, all other electronic payment platforms require a bank account in the formal financial sector for smooth transactions.
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% increase over 405 million recorded in July.
An analysis of the first 8 months for 2022, released, revealed that the NIP platform recorded N26.6 billion transactions in January. Year on year, this was a 43.7% 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% growth.
In March, the platform recorded 31.8 trillion transactions, a 44.5% 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% 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% 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% growth over N23.1 trillion posted at the same time in 2021.
The data for July also reflected a 31% 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% to N33.2 trillion compared to N22.1 trillion recorded in the same period last year.
The e-payment system has been proven to have a significant number of economic benefits which includes, mobilization of savings, and ensuring that most of the cash available in the country are with banks, which will make funds available to both businesses and individuals.