Despite the huge difference in charges, more Nigerians have resorted to transacting business with Point of Sale (PoS) terminal operators than visiting Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) for with drawals and deposits.
Findings by New Telegraph show that in the first two months of the current year, the total value of PoS transactions rose by 339.24 per cent, or N5.61 trillion, to N7.27 trillion, compared with N1.66 trillion in the corresponding period of 2024.
According to the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), the value of PoS transactions stood at N4.10 trillion and N3.17 trillion in January and February 2025, respectively.
In a report released by Financial Derivatives Company Limited (FDC), which usually cites e-payment transactions data obtained from NIBSS, while the value of transactions through PoS terminals declined by 22.68 per cent in February when compared with the previous month, an analysis of latest NIBSS data, however, indicates that the value of PoS transactions rose by 69 per cent to N18 trillion in 2024, from N10.74 trillion in 2023.
In fact, the NIBSS data also shows that the value of electronic payment transactions in the country hit a record N1.07 quadrillion in 2024 compared with N603.36 trillion in the previous year.
Analysts note that there has been increased adoption of e-payment in the country in recent years, driven by factors such as the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) initiatives to promote its cashless policy, the impact of the 2020 Covid-19 crisis and the naira redesign programme introduced by the apex bank in late 2022. For instance, in its report titled, “Instant Payments – 2020 Annual Statistics”, the NIBSS stated:
“The Covid-19 pandemic changed the e-payments landscape, accelerating the adoption of instant payments as more people transitioned to electronic channels for funds exchange in the wake of government-imposed lockdowns.”
New Telegraph reports that implementation challenges with the CBN’s naira redesign policy led to an acute shortage of cash, which crippled economic activities across the country in the first quarter of 2023, thereby forcing bank customers, who were unable to access cash at the time, to adopt e-payment channels.
Indeed, there are indications that lingering cash scarcity in the banking system was responsible for the reported surge in the value of PoS transactions last year as more people became banking agents or PoS merchants to meet increased demand for cash from bank customers who were frustrated by their inability to withdraw cash from ATMs or banking halls.
Consequently, NIBSS data indicates that PoS terminals deployed across the country by financial institutions surged by 127.07 per cent to hit a record 5.56 million as at the end of December 2024, compared with 2.45 million in the corresponding period of the previous year. This implies that a total of 3.11 million PoS terminals were deployed across the country last year.
