Amid the economic hardship and digital glitches that dominated last year, financial transactions via electronic payment platforms rose by nearly 80 per cent to break the quadrillion mark for the first time in 2024

Specifically, e-payment transactions rose by nearly 8 0 per cent above N600 trillion recorded in 2023 to hit N1.07 quadrillion. This is according to data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) yesterday.

While the e-payment data showed a steady increase throughout the 12 months of the year, the highest value was recorded in December. The analysis showed that in January, from 887.58 million volumes of transactions, Nigerians spent N72.1 trillion; in February, 905 million transactions valued at N79.3 trillion were closed. March saw 986.6 million transactions valued at N83 trillion; April witnessed 953.6 million transactions valued at N75.3 trillion while May witnessed 1.02 billion transactions, which resulted in N87.4 trillion.

Further, volumes of transactions in June came down to 871.7 million and resulted in N79.6 trillion e-payment values. In July, the value was N89.5 trillion from 907 million volumes.

In August, the volume was N90.8 trillion; for September, from 935 million transactions, the e-payment value rose to N93.5 trillion. In October, the volume rose to 980.3 million valued at N103.2 trillion while November saw 931.3 million transactions, which amounted to N109.5 trillion.

Being a festive period with lots of spending, Nigerians spent a total of N115.1 trillion through electronic channels in December 2024. The volume was 962.2 million.

Further, the volume of transactions processed by NIBSS for the year also jumped from 9.7 billion in 2023 to 11.2 billion in 2024. This represents a 15.5 per cent increase in the volume of electronic transactions year on year.

NIBSS puts Point of Sales (PoS) value at N18, 146,540,000,000 in 2024 against N10, 736,720,000,000 recorded in 2023. The volume was 1,450,290,000 in 2024 against 1,386,160,000 of 2023.

Industry analysts believe that the surge in e-payment transactions can be linked to the recent cash crunch experience and the cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) limiting the amount of cash that can be withdrawn daily.

According to the revised cashless policy, which came into effect on January 9, 2023, cash withdrawal by an individual is limited to N500,000 a week, while corporate organisations have a N5 million withdrawal limit in a week.

Further, the non-availability of cash at both the banking halls and their ATM terminals also pushed Nigerians to embrace e-payment. The gap pushed so many people to resort to PoS operators, through which they either use their cards or transfer into accounts to receive cash.

Last week, a CBN report revealed that Nigerians transacted N85.91 trillion through PoS terminals in the first half of 2024, a figure that is over seven times the N12.21 trillion recorded for ATM transactions within the same period.

https://guardian.ng/business-services/business/nigerias-yearly-e-payment-transactions-break-n1-quadrillion-mark/