Mobile Transfers Peaked Highest in January with 108M Transactions

Nume Ekeghe

The month of January 2023 recorded the highest number of mobile money transactions since its inception at 108 million, numbers released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBBs) has revealed.

This is coming on the back of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) stance on its cashless policy.

This peak is also a ripple effect of the naira redesign that has steered more Nigerians to using alternative mode for transactions.  

The NIBBS figures showed that a total of 108.135 million transfers were made in the month of January while the value of mobile transactions in September 2022 stood at N2.37 trillion.

Analysis of the numbers showed that although the volume of transactions peaked in January, the value of transactions via mobile money declined marginally from N2.48 trillion in December but grew by 44 per cent compared with N1.05 trillion in January 2022.

Also, the value and volume of electronic transactions done through the Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System Instant Payment (NIP) channel dipped slightly last month.

According to January 2023 electronic transactions data released by NIBSS,  the volume of transaction done via NIP dropped by 3.5 per cent in January to 542.65 million compared to the December 2022 figure of 561.31 million.

Similarly the volume of transactions via the NIP platform went down by 7.74 per cent from N42.023 trillion in December 2022 to N38.772 trillion last month. However, the transaction volume and value had risen by 55 and 45 per cent respectively when compared to 348 million volume and N26.6 trillion value recorded in January of 2022.

While the volume of transactions via the POS platform had risen by 13.04 per cent, the value of transactions on the platform had declined by 2.3 per cent. Last year a total of 85.23 million transactions with a value of N826.3 billion was transacted through the POS platform as against 96.34 million transactions with a value of N807.16 billion done in January this year.

Year on year, the industry data showed that payments made through the point-of-sale (PoS) in terms of volume increased to 96 million, a 6 percent surge from 90 million recorded in the periods under review.

Value of transactions also showed significant growth of N807 billion in January from N573 billion reported in January 2022, representing a 98 per cent rise in its value. Following the same trend, the volume of mobile transactions increased by 237 percent to 108 million in January 2023 from 32 million in January 2022, its value also rose by 124.8 per cent to N2.4 trillion from N1.1 trillion in the period under review.