Cashless Policy: Decline in cheque transactions to N283.4bn as Nigerians migrate to e-payment

By Seun Ibiyemi

Following the crises of new naira notes in the country, in a bid to promote cashless policy, Nigerians are gradually migrating to electronic payments as the value of transactions using cheques dropped to N282.4billion in March.

This showed a 3.41 per cent decline on a year-on-year basis when compared to N293.40 billion recorded as transaction value in March 2022.

The figure is in accordance with the latest electronic transactions data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS) recently.

While the value of check transactions declined, the volume of cheque transactions increased by 12.82 per cent to 426,926 in March this year against the 378,874 obtained in the corresponding period.

The decline in the value of cheque transactions may be as a result of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) cashless policy.

The CBN had redesigned the old N1,000, N500 and N200 notes with the aim of enforcing a cashless policy through electronic modes of payment in the country.

Also, corporate and personal accounts in Nigeria have a maximum amount which they can withdraw over the counter and any amount in excess will be charged according to the new CBN policy.

The data showed that the total value from e-payments increased by 51.98 per cent in March 2023 to record N48.33 trillion compared to N31.80trillion the corresponding period.

Also, the volume of e-payment increased to 1.18 billion this year representing an increase of 192.2 per cent to the 402.49 million recorded in March 2022.

A breakdown from the e-payment showed that in March 2023, transfers carried out through mobile phones were N4.15 trillion representing a 215 per cent increase to the N1.34 trillion recorded in March 2022.

The data also revealed that the volume of transactions in March this year increased by 794 per cent to 380.11 million compared to the 42.48 million recorded on a year-on-year basis.

Also, the figure is the highest-ever monthly transactions recorded on the mobile platform and almost twice the N2.5 trillion record of February this year.

The drastic increase in the value and volume of mobile transactions witnessed in March this year could be attributed to the naira scarcity, which pushed millions of Nigerians to embrace the electronic mode of payment.

Also, during that period, glitches in the network from banks were encountered. This led to delays and reversals in the transfer which became unbearable for both businesses and individuals to carry out their various monetary obligations.

This development further led to an increase in the demand for services rendered by Point of Sale (POS) operators.

The value of transactions carried out on various POS terminals in March was N1.15 trillion, according to NIBSS.

This figure recorded indicated that an increase of 61.01 per cent was realised when compared to the N715.56 billion transferred through POS in March 2022.