Electronic payment transactions in Nigeria soared to N1.07 quadrillion in 2024, marking a historic milestone as the first time the country has reached the quadrillion mark.
Data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System reveals that the value of transactions on the NIBSS Instant Payment platform surged by 79.6%, compared to N600 trillion in 2023.
The e-payment data indicates consistent growth throughout 2024, with the highest transaction value recorded in December.
During the festive period, marked by increased spending, Nigerians spent a total of N115.1 trillion via electronic channels in December 2024.
Additionally, the volume of transactions processed by NIBSS saw a notable rise, increasing from 9.7 billion in 2023 to 11.2 billion in 2024.
This marks a 15.5% year-on-year growth in the number of electronic transactions.
Industry analysts believe that the surge in e-payment transactions can be linked to the recent cash crunch experience and the cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria limiting the amount of cash that can be withdrawn daily.
A Lagos-based financial analyst, Mr. Adewale Adeoye, stated that the reduced availability of cash in banks, compared to previous times, has been driving more Nigerians to adopt cashless payment methods.
According to him, those who still require cash are now turning to Point of Sale operators, using their cards or making transfers to accounts in order to withdraw cash.
“It is expected that electronic transactions will continue to go up since banks are not willing to release cash like before. Aside from the CBN withdrawal limit, if you enter a bank today to withdraw cash, they may tell you that you can’t collect more than N5,000 over the counter.
“So, you are forced to use ATMs, which in most cases are also short of cash. If all that fails, you start looking for PoS operators or you resort to doing mobile transfers,” he noted.
The NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP) is an account-number-based, online real-time inter-bank payment solution developed by NIBSS in 2011.
It has become the preferred funds transfer platform in Nigeria’s financial industry, offering instant value to beneficiaries.
