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- Hails cashless policy
From Amechi Ogbonna, Uche Usim and Chinwendu Obienyi, Calabar
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Tuesday, revealed that the volume of electronic transactions grew by 836.50 per cent in nine years, noting that the cashless policy programme currently being deepened will take Nigeria’s economy to the next level.
The CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, stated these in Calabar in his opening remarks at the 34th seminar for Finance Correspondents and Business Editors themed; “Implementing a Robust payment Architecture: Prospects, Opportunities and Challenges”.
Emefiele, who was represented by the Director, Monetary Policy Department of the CBN, Dr Hassan Mahmud, stated that as a deliberate policy towards ensuring easier, cheaper and faster means of payments, the CBN has continued to collaborate with relevant stakeholders in the adoption of payment systems instruments and channels, such as the Bank Verification Number (BVN), the Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), Regulatory Sandbox, Open Banking and the CBN Digital Currency (CBDC), the eNaira.
Emefiele further disclosed that the Payments System Vision
(PSV) 2025 was recently issued as a guidepost for the payments system 2025, adding that its main goal is to expand payment options available to customers and strengthen regulation of the payments system.
He noted that the apex bank has played the critical role of being a regulator, operator and catalyst in its efforts to design a robust payments system in the country, adding that through the implementation of several of its initiatives and programmes, the CBN has successfully repositioned the Nigerian payments system to be highly competitive and one of the most innovative globally.
He said: “These efforts have culminated in a significant increase in the total volume of transactions on Electronic Payment Channels. While the use of cash and cheques continues to diminish, web-based transactions such as POS, NIP, ATM and MMO have increased substantially. For instance, between 2012 and 2021, the volume of transactions via electronic channels such as ATM, POS, WEB, MMO and NIP increased by 99.76, 1,775.72, 35,502.58, 2,413.44, that is about 836.50 per cent increase, in 9 years”.
He said the CBN has demonstrated irrevocable commitment to ensuring the stability and safety of the Nigerian payment system and shall continue to deepen its oversight of the activities of operators in the payments system as well as ensure full compliance with regulations.
Highlighting some of the extant challenges faced by the bank in implementing these initiatives, Emefiele noted that the weak social infrastructure, activities of unlicensed entities and cyber threats and fraud continued to threaten the resilience of the payment platforms and added that in response to the challenges posed by cyber threats, the CBN put several initiatives in place to combat the challenges.
He assured that the apex bank will continue to adopt a collaborative approach to achieve minimal cybersecurity threats in the payments system.
Speaking on the theme of the event, the Director, Payment Systems Management Department at CBN, Musa Jimoh, said that despite the challenges in the payment system, the outlook for the payment system in Nigeria is very good and provides huge opportunities for economic revival and growth.
Jimoh, who was represented by the Deputy Director, Payment Systems Management Department at CBN, Adefuye Adeyemi, said that with the nationwide go-live of the cashless policy, transactions will grow in volume and value and will require a resilient and stable system to sustain the industry.
He also noted that although the confidence of the public has been impacted by cyber threats, collaborative efforts between the bank and the industry is helping to curtail fraudulent activities.
According to him, the CBN is closely monitoring some accounts and has about 7,552 accounts on its Bank Verification Number (BVN) watchlist.
