Point of Sale Transaction Hits N6.4tn, Cheques Usage Up 3.9% in 2021

Nume Ekeghe

Point of sale (PoS) transactions increased usage as the value of transactions on the platform for 2021 rose to N6.43 trillion, a 36 per cent improvement compared to N4.72 trillion recorded in 2020.

Nigerians adoption of the several electronic channels continued to rise as N271.95 trillion had changed hands in 2021 on the Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System Instant Payment (NIP) platform while transactions via mobile channels rose by 164 per cent last year. Put together, the Point of Sale terminals, NIP and mobile channels had seen transactions worth N286.45 trillion
Data released by Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) on its website showed that transaction volume on its instant payment platform had risen by 71.9 per cent last year to N271.95 trillion compared to N158.21 trillion that was recorded on the platform in 2020.

The highest value had been recorded in December, indicating Nigerian’s preference for electronic channels in paying during the festive season. The data showed that as against 319.93 million transaction volume with a value of N25.93 trillion recorded in November, the use of the channel had risen to 391.82 million transactions with a value of N30.26 trillion.

The platform had seen a 24.9 per cent increase in usage in December last year as the volume of transactions on the channel rose to 99.54 million compared to 84.91 million in November while the value of transactions rose to N699.75 billion as against N560.26 billion.

Adoption of the several mobile channels increased significantly with the value of transactions consummated via the channel rose by 164.4 per cent in 2021 to N8.06 trillion as against N3.05 trillion that was recorded in 2020.

In December last year, the use of the mobile channel had seen a volume of 35.49 million transactions with a value of N1.19 trillion as against 31.28 million transactions with a value of N957.4 billion in November, a 25 per cent improvement.

The usage of cheques which has been on the decline however saw an uptick in December last year with 390,677 cheques valued at N300.91 billion processed by NIBSS compared to 377,540 cheques valued at N281.82 billion that was processed in November. In December 2020, a total of 504,728 cheques valued at N325.3 billion were processed.