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Recession’s ghost hobbling e-transactions as PoS use plunge in Sept, Oct.

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Research has shown that more impacts of recession are still being discovered as the day go by.

Only recently, indications emerged that the state of the economy and recession in particular are now changing people’s mindset into believing that cash transaction is a big risk now.

The meaning of the development is that people prefer to do much of their transactions with raw cash than using the Point of Sale (PoS).

This fact is salutary to the discovery last month by operators of PoS that the use dropped badly in months of September and October this year.

A report by Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) the industry Payments Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA), that value of transactions over the platform recorded only N2billion increase from N64Billion to N66Billion between the month of August and September this year, while it recorded N5billion increase between the month of July and August this year.

More so, volume of transactions was also affected as volume in the month under review recorded only 2 million increase from 53million to 55million compared to 3million increase it recorded between July and August this year.

In her remarks on the development, Mrs. Regha Onajite, chief executive officer, Electronic Payment Providers Association of Nigeria (EPPAN) said that a lot of people have not really embraced the PoS but, that is not a challenge.

She said “The PoS is only a channel for electronic payment. We have so many other channels like the Mpos, mobile, ATMS, web/online, instant payments etc. so the PoS is one of many other choices.”

“The CBN and the operators should focus on awareness creation for further adoption. During the early days of the Cashless initiative, E-PPAN under the aegis of the CBN and the support of the financial institutions had massive awareness campaign especially below the line campaign in addition to what the banks, the central bank and other providers were doing with above the line campaign to promote the understanding and adoption of electronic payments channels. This I will say has to be sustained.”

“We are talking here about a change in culture, a shift in behaviour, it can’t be done overnight. Advocacy for change must be sustained. The message must continuously be in the face of the people. Now sensitization and mobilization should be supported by deliberate policies from the government. In my opinion, the Central Bank should implement the cash limitation policies across the entire nation. This should be supported by a reward and punishment system.”

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