Telcos Distant Selves from Failed Financial Transactions, Urges Banks to Build Capacity around Mobile Apps

Emma Okonji

Following the increase in failed financial transactions currently being experienced by bank customers, the telecom operators (Telcos) whose infrastructure the banks ride on to provide financial services to customers, have distant themselves from such failed transactions.

The Telcos are blaming the situation on the inability of mobile apps, provided by the banks, to absorb the sudden pressure from bank customers who have switched from other payment channels to mobile banking channel because the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) are no longer dispensing cash as they should.

Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, who exonerated the Telcos from all failed financial transactions, told THISDAY that the Telcos do not have control over what happens between banks and banks’ customers during financial transactions, because the Telcos only provide the pipe that relays the financial transactions. 

“We provide the pipe for transportation of all financial transactions between the banks and their customers. What happens at the interconnectivity end of the financial transaction is not under the control of the telecom operators, whose infrastructure, the banks are using to provide digital financial services to their customers. All other online applications like Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), e-Commerce, website and internet browsing, are working perfectly, except for mobile apps used for financial transactions, which I think, is as a result of increased volume of transactions on the mobile apps of banks, because the ATMs are no longer dispensing cash as they should and the banks are not releasing cash across the counters, leading to cash crunch in the economy.” Adebayo said.    

According to him, “Before the current naira re-design policy, there were alternative means of financial transactions, through USSD, ATMs and mobile apps, but since ATMs are currently not dispensing cash, people shifted to internet and mobile app banking and the pressure suddenly became much on the mobile apps, leading to failed transactions. So the banks need to build more capacity and strengthen their baking applications to make the apps resilient enough to accommodate the pressure.” 

In his views, if cashless policy was Telco-led, there would have been better access to financial services and failed transactions would have greatly reduced. If it was Telco-led, the ease of financial transactions will be higher that what it is today because the Telcos have the network, the devices and the subscriber number. Today the Telcos have recorded over 200 million subscribers across networks, a number that is far above the number of Nigerians with bank accounts, and the Telcos are able to manage the over 200 million subscribers by providing unhindered services to them. At the beginning of the cashless policy in 2011, we pushed for Telcos-led cashless economy but the banks refused and said it must be bank-led because public funds are involved, which they felt they could manage better than the Telcos, but today they are having crisis managing financial transactions, Adebayo further said.    

However, the Executive Secretary, Information Technology Systems and Security Professionals (ITSSP), an interest group of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Mr. Rogba Adeoye, has blamed the situation on the mass exodus of bank staff who are relocating abroad for fear of the dwindling economic situation of the country. 

According to Adeoye, there is pressure on the transaction channels because of increased volume of traffic on few of the channels like the mobile app channel. 

“The transactions are failing on a daily basis because the experts that were supposed to manage the backend transactions have all relocated, leaving the few remaining inexperienced technical staff to manage the situation. Outsourcing the transaction operations of the bank could have been the ideal thing to do, but the bank cannot outsource a critical aspect of their operations because it has to do with public funds. 

“Again, the bank staff that programmed the ATMs to dispense only N500 and N1000 notes have all relocated to other countries and the banks are finding it extremely difficult to programme their ATMs to dispense N50 and N100 that are not affected by the CBN policy on re-design of the naira notes,” Adeoye said.  

He therefore called on federal government to hold stakeholders’ emergency meeting in electronic transactions.

He further advised that Telcos and the banks should develop more capacity and employ staff members that are willing to remain in Nigeria and work in Nigeria. Adeoye also called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to introduce inter-agency coordination and fund it, to enable it monitor what banks and Telcos are doing.  

Adebayo, in his submission, said the CBN policy on cashless and re-design of Naira notes should be commended and supported by all because it is the way to go in today’s world of digital transformation. 

“There are many benefits of going cashless, because it saves government the huge cost of printing money, and it saves individuals the risk of keeping and carrying cash around,” Adebayo said.