Gift Joseph Okpakorese
Current stats from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that the banking sector has reported a total volume of 3.46 billion transactions via electronic payment channels, amounting to N356.47 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2020 (Q4 2020).
With the advent of the Electronic Banking system, recent findings have revealed that the Nigerian economy has to a large extent, come to terms with the importance of the cashless policy which was earlier introduced by experts from the banking sector with the aid of the federal government, and have embraced the culture of the electronic banking system which in the opinion of many, has made businesses and transactions a lot easier, as against the backdrop of initial thoughts when it was earlier introduced, where many critics were skeptical and feared that it would not be plausible especially due to the increased nature of crimes within the federation.
Recalled that this figure exemplifies an N36.48 trillion improvement (11 percent) from N319.99 trillion earlier published in the third quarter of 2020 (Q3 2020).
In line with the earlier overview labeled, ‘Selected Banking Sector Data: Sectorial Breakdown of Credit, ePayment Channels and Staff Strength (Q4 2020)’, released on Sunday, 25th of April 2021, electronic transmission and monetary exchange accounted for the majority of business transactions for the duration of the interval under inquiry.
Accordingly, the data indicated that the result for online transmission resulted in 2.27 billion percentage of marketings, valued at N120.27 trillion. The volume in Q4 2020 is 39.67 percent higher than the figures recorded in Q3 2020.
More so, a disaggregation of electronic expenditure conducts exhibit that 5.5 million quantity of transactions were accomplished via cheques estimated at N4.2 trillion during the period under review.
Meanwhile, Automated Teller Machine (ATM) bargains, documented 455.25 million volume graded at N4.54 trillion in Q4 2020. The proportion, however, decreased 14.11 percent distinguished to the number of transactions recorded in Q3 2020.
It was also noted that an aggregate of 214.84 million transactions was carried out with the aid of Point Of Sale (POS) transactions, treasured at N1.51 trillion during the period.
Furthermore. the number of transactions carried out via Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) accumulated 9 percent in Q4 2020 at 145.58 million valued at N1.63 trillion.
Transactions over mobile applications also increased by 10.80 percent in Q4 2020 at 124 million value at N9.9 trillion.
These stats indeed reveals a wide range of variance on how citizens have come to appreciate the use of these electronic devices and improved technologies in their daily activities and business transactions.
