Point of Sale (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, latest data released by Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) shows. This implies that a total of 3.11 million PoS terminals were deployed across the country last year.
An analysis of the data shows a steady increase in the number of deployed POS terminal between January and December 2024. Specifically, according to the data, the number of deployed terminals stood at 2.48 million in January; 2.58 million in February; 2.69 million in March; 2.80 million in April; 2.85 million in May and 2.94 million in June.
The data also shows that deployed PoS terminals stood at 3.05 million in July; 3.15 million in August; 3.24 million in September; 4.87 million in October; 5.40 million in November and 5.56 million in December. Further analysis of the data also indicates that there has been significant increase in the number of registered and deployed PoS terminals in recent years.
For instance, the number of registered POS terminals in the country, according to NIBSS, stood at 7.79 million in December 2024; 3.49 million in December 2023; 2.33 million in December 2022; 1.32 million in December 2021 and 690,070 in December 2020.
Similarly, total number of deployed PoS terminals, which stood at 459, 285 as at December 2020, rose to 915,519 and 1.67 million in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Analysts believe that 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, led to more Nigerians embracing epayment channels, thus resulting in the substantial increase in the number of deployed PoS terminals. In its report titled, “Instant Payments – 2020 Annual Statistics”, for instance, 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.”
Analysts particularly attribute the surge in the number of deployed PoS terminals in the last two years to the acute shortage of cash, occasioned by implementation challenges with the CBN’s naira redesign policy, 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 rely on banking agents (PoS merchants).
