General News
ATM Charge Will Boost Use of PoS – Ogungbade
Tunde Ogungbade, managing director and CEO, Global Accelerex Limited, a payment terminal service provider and a payment terminal application development company has about 19 years of global business experience as a business executive, technology thought leader, management consultant and entrepreneur.
Ogungbade has worked for organizations such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cap Gemini, Ernst and Young, Sogeti Group as a management consultant providing consulting services to different industry sectors such as financial services and banking, retail, telecommunication, software product development, among others.
He spoke to chike onwuegbuchi on issues around e-payment in the country.
Inter-bank ATM charge of N65
There are mixed feelings about the re-introduction of the inter-bank ATM charge. However, to properly evaluate the impact of the policy reversal, it is important to understand the origin and ideas behind ATM charges.
Historically, ATMs where introduced into banking to reduce operating cost, stemming from the idea that computers theoretically should be cheaper to operate and more available than human tellers at a bank branches.
At inception of ATMs over 33 years ago, the banks predominantly covered the cost i.e. the interchange fee, which included a switch fee as well as an annual operating fee to be part of a network.
Later, Banks introduced a surcharge fees to customers using other networks, similar to our Remote-On-Us charges.
In Nigeria, the banking industry has invested significantly in ATMs since their introduction over a decade ago.
We now have 11.39 ATMs for every hundred thousand Nigerians. To maintain a 24/7 operations ATMs, banks incur a cost, which is more significant in Nigeria when you consider the cost drivers for operating ATMs: Power, Network connectivity and technical/operational human capital support costs.
The Bankers Committee in 2012 had certain objectives, which I believe has been achieved. Back then the goal was about eliminating the fees to promote cashless adoption by changing consumer behavior.
Now in 2014, the Bankers Committee has a different objective: preserve the viability of ATM network in Nigeria by making sure that the banks can cover the operating expenses related to their ATM networks.
The push back from stakeholders clearly indicates that the original intention to raise sufficient bank customers’ awareness and gain adoption on the cashless policy has been achieved.
Now that POS terminals are now available and in used nationwide, Cardholders have options and alternatives to ATMs today which were not available in 2012.
They can bypass the ATMs and engage POS terminals directly by electing to patronize merchants’ offering options beyond cash.
It’s interesting to note that other countries, such as the US with less infrastructure challenges, charge higher network surcharge fees, sometimes as much as $3.00 to their customers.
In summary, the policy will have an overall impact of improving ATM network sustainability in Nigeria through revenues now available for ATM upgrade and enhancements that will also offset ATM operating costs for banks.
For consumers, it will trigger the next behavioral change for cashless policy adoption and drive the economy faster towards achieving the objectives of the policy by causing them to look to merchants help to leapfrog the ATM and its fees by offering POS terminals at point of the sale.
Cash Transactions Still High In spite of Cashless Policy
The cashless policy in Nigeria has a primary aim or goal – achieve a cashless economy. This is a vision statement.
At present, no nation in the world can claim to have 100% consumer cashless transactions. In Nigeria, policy makers have continued to do what is necessary.
Engage industry participants and stakeholders from all sectors, solicit input on proposed policies, effect such policies and measure for impact and implications on the economy over a season before further adjustments.
This is exactly what happened with the introduction and enhancement of various policies over the last two years, such as the Lagos Cashless Pilot, the adoption across six other states and now the entire nation for POS terminals at Merchants; likewise the ATM Fees withdrawal and reintroduction of ATM Remote-On-Us fees a at financial institutions across the nation.
Other policy adjustments are the various reviews in the deposit and withdrawal fees for cash transactions at banks.
Macroeconomic monetary policy adjustments are not a dash but a marathon. The primary objective now is making the informal sector formal and getting the unbanked banked.
After the rebase of our GDP, the informal sector accounts for about 57% of our GDP. This sector is perhaps also the highest employer of labor in the economy.
This is why the cash transactions are still high in the economy. To address it, continual policy adjustments for improvements coupled with strong awareness campaigns targeted towards stakeholders in the informal sector is required.
The sector must be made aware of the benefit of becoming formal, without necessary emphasizing on eliminating cash.
Increasing Deployment and use of PoS Terminals by Small Merchants
There is a strong motivation for big merchants to adopt POS terminals. For one, the large volume amount of cash transactions that they engage in on a daily basis, even with the withdrawal of deposit fees for corporates still presents a high cost for merchants due to Cash-In-Transit services cost that is no longer borne by banks that merchants now have to incur.
Others are avoiding robbery, theft and fraud which merchants are highly susceptible to when they maintain a vault like a bank.
For big merchants, these costs far outweigh 1.25% being charge for accepting card payment via the POS channel.
Smaller merchants in the formal sector are not structured to evaluate these types of costs and sometimes when they can, the business cannot accommodate the T+1 settlement process associated with POS transactions; cash flow is a daily lifeline for majority of these small merchants.
As a service provider, we at Global Accelerex have observed that when a small business meets the evaluation criteria for a bank such as turnover volumes etc. and qualify for a POS terminal, they still do not use the POS terminals either because of the settlement process or the nature of their customer interaction.
In addition, because the majority of these small businesses deal with the customers and suppliers that live or function in the informal sector with cash preferences, cultivating e-payment habits is challenging.
The major challenge I see now is getting small merchants to wait a day for settlement and part with the proceeds from revenue to move funds electronically. It is a tough sale to any small business.
Connectivity Issue in Business of PoS
Connectivity continues to improve albeit at a slow but steady pace. There have been recommendations by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) to review some of its rules to ensure consumer quality experience in the industry.
Such improvements will have a direct impact on POS Terminal connectivity since the majority of these terminals depend on Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to back haul connection to the switch and payment network.
We at Global Accelerex have however observed that network connectivity is not the only issue with POS terminal frustrations experienced by merchants and consumers accepting and making card payments respectively.
The quality of the POS terminal hardware and software solution also plays a major role in service level experienced.
Rigorous testing and certifications is required to ensure that terminal solutions achieve the service level that guarantees business operations’ uptime to merchant and consumers.
Global Accelerex has Terminal Management Solutions that enables it to monitor from a central location the operations of POS terminals we manage and operate as terminal owners.
From our central management dashboard, we can deduce if the issue of POS terminal connectivity has to do with delayed payment of data services plan fees to an MNO by a financial institution, check the status of our POS terminals, track the registered SIMs on the terminals, determine the cause of declined transactions to mention a few.
This allows Global Accelerex to be proactive in working with the Bank, Switches and MNO to resolve issues and keep the merchants’ POS terminals in service.
We have also discovered in other situations that the issue is not the connectivity between the POS terminal and the switch, but rather a down acquirer or issuer system essential to the success of a payment transaction.
This is most frustrating for cardholders. Long and short, a failed transaction it is not always due to connectivity.
Now we have started training merchants on how to evaluate response codes for transactions to educate cardholders on the issue related to decline transactions. Sometimes, it is as easy as informing a consumer that their card has expired!
VAS in Business of PoS to Encourage Use
Value added services require extensive knowledge of system integration with the payment network. This is one area of strength for Global Accelerex.
We are both a Payment Terminal Service Provider and a Payment Terminal Application Development company.
To date, we have successfully implemented Virtual Top-up (VTU) Vending on the POS terminal with our business partners to do VTU for various MNOs products.
To use this service, you enter any GSM Number (this does not need to be tied to an account or bank card), verify it and make payment to instantly receive the VTU on your phone – no scratch card necessary.
We have also developed bespoke POS terminal application that integrates into core business systems for electric bill payments and collection.
In addition, our POS terminals have been enhanced and certified by NIBSS for Payment with Cashback, Cash Advance, Deposit so that consumers can begin to enjoy these value added services at merchant locations that are approved for such transactions by a bank.
This is all in readiness for agency banking, an area we are aggressively working on. You may have observed that these VAS Services are tailored to merchants with business needs for integrating payment into their core business process or generic consumer offering i.e. VTU Top-up.
The reason is that we have discovered as a PTSP that the revenues from VAS that can accrue to a merchant has not reached a threshold where it has become an attractive proposition and incentive for the merchant to promote consumer use. This will change very soon.
Global Accelerex and Initiatives Towards Increased Use of PoS
Global Accelerex is a CBN fully licensed Payment Terminal Service Provider and as such we provide services on the acquiring side of the payment system to banks and merchants.
From a product perspective, we offer standard and customized POS terminal solution (hardware and software) to banks and merchants that are uniquely tailored to their business requirements.
Our solutions have a rich set of application programming interface that enables seamless integration with merchants’ core business systems e.g. ERP Systems, CRM Systems, Business Operations Support Systems etc. so that they have visibility of their Order to Cash or Service to Payment business processes.
We also recognize that some merchants do not have the IT Operations for such large scale back office system and offer the ability for medium to small scale merchants to connect to our VAS Platform and enjoy similar benefits that large merchants can afford.
We do this on a pay as you go basis for such merchants. Merchants that subscribe to such services are equipped with Real Time Analysis of their business transactions at a fractional cost.
This is what most small to medium merchants are appealing for – easy reconciliation of daily transactions.
We also provide custom solutions for Agency Banking and IGR Collections. Depending on bank or merchant’s use case, our solutions can also be tailored to integrate our PoS Systems to the merchants’ system on premises or on the cloud.
From a services side, we have Service Level Agreements with merchant acquiring banks to provide terminal agnostic PTSP services to merchants they have acquired.
Our merchant support officers are spreading across the nation armed with tools and technology to help achieve one objective – terminal up time for merchants’ business operations.
They are complemented with tools and technology from our headquarters to help with work order from banks, manage deployments, triage support issues, document resolution and put terminals promptly into service for use.
Through our proprietary systems and processes, we know when an operational terminal is not active within a predefined timeframe so that we can take corrective actions; we know when the merchant is not meeting a banks expectation and often the first to inform the bank of performance metrics; we know the volumes and values of transactions across our merchants and see time series analysis of transactions.
This and more are the type of innovation and service offering we provide to merchants and acquiring banks that we believe will help towards increasing the use of PoS.
We believe consumers are ready because they want the convenience and want to avoid the ATM fees.
Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, has cautioned that failure to implement Nigeria’s new tax laws by January 1, 2026, would leave the vast majority of workers and businesses at a disadvantage.
Taiwo Oyedele
Speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, Oyedele said postponing the reforms would mean that “the bottom 98 per cent of workers remain overtaxed,” while businesses continue to grapple with multiple taxation and miss out on exemptions.
He added that small and unprofitable enterprises would still be subject to minimum taxes, and hidden VAT charges would keep driving up the cost of essentials such as food, healthcare, and education.
His comments come amid calls by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate Peter Obi, and several civil society groups for a suspension of the reforms. Oyedele argued that rather than halting implementation, specific areas of concern should be identified and corrected.
“So, we need to be clear about what we are asking for,” he said. “Even if it is established that there have been substantial alterations to what the National Assembly passed, my view will be to identify those provisions… and go ahead to implement the law as passed by the NASS, while you address the issues as to how they got in there in the first place.”
Oyedele acknowledged that even the version passed by lawmakers contained sections requiring amendment, citing issues with referencing and definitions.
He also addressed controversy over alleged discrepancies between the gazetted laws and those approved by the National Assembly, noting that without access to the officially harmonised bills certified by the clerk, it was difficult to determine differences.
He pointed to Section 41(8), which initially appeared to require a 20 per cent deposit but was later excluded from the final version, stressing that some draft materials circulating in the media did not originate from the House committee. “I think we should allow them do the investigation,” he said.
President Bola Tinubu has already signed the four tax reform bills into law, describing them as the most significant overhaul of Nigeria’s tax system in decades.
The reforms — the Nigeria Tax Act, Nigeria Tax Administration Act, Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, and Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act — are scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2026, under a unified Nigeria Revenue Service.
Banks across the country have raised fresh warnings to customers over the rising risk of digital fraud linked to the use of public Wi-Fi networks for banking and payment transactions, particularly during the festive season when electronic spending typically surges.
Wi-Fi
In customer advisories issued ahead of Christmas and New Year celebrations, banks cautioned that fraudsters are increasingly exploiting unsecured public internet networks in places such as airports, hotels, shopping malls and restaurants to gain unauthorised access to bank accounts.
Access Bank, one of Nigeria’s largest banks, over the weekend, via emails, alerted customers that the holiday period remains a prime window for cybercriminals seeking to harvest sensitive financial information through compromised networks.
“The festive season is here and there is no better time to keep your account safe. Please do not share your PIN, OTP, CVV, or full card number with anyone no matter how tempting the offer is. Verify transaction alerts via the Accessmore app and avoid using public Wi-fi for banking transactions”, the bank stated.
According to cybersecurity experts, public Wi-Fi networks can allow attackers to deploy techniques such as “man-in-the-middle” attacks, where fraudsters intercept communications between users and banking platforms, potentially stealing login credentials or transaction details.
Nigeria’s banking sector has continued to grapple with rising digital fraud as the adoption of mobile banking, instant payments and card transactions accelerates. Industry data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) show that fraud losses across digital payment channels have remained in the tens of billions of naira annually, with spikes typically recorded during peak spending periods such as year-end festivities.
Banks say the growing sophistication of fraud schemes has made customer awareness a critical line of defence, especially as criminals increasingly target behavioural lapses rather than technical loopholes.
Access Bank advised customers to verify all transaction alerts through its AccessMore app and to act swiftly if suspicious activity is detected. “Block your account immediately by dialing *901*911# or chat with us via the LiveChat icon on AccessMore if you suspect your account has been compromised,” it said.
Other banks are also reinforcing similar messages, urging customers to rely on secure mobile data or trusted private networks for financial transactions, while avoiding links, offers or messages that promise unusually high returns or urgent payment requests.
Analysts note that while banks have invested heavily in cybersecurity infrastructure, fraud prevention remains a shared responsibility between financial institutions and customers.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has continually stressed that there was a need for Fintech innovation, collaboration and trust as it will shape Nigeria’s digital financial future, while insisting on regulatory compliance among Fintech players.
Its Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, while speaking during a keynote address at the opening ceremony of the ongoing Nigeria Fintech Week 2025 in Lagos, themed: ‘The Fintech Ecosystem Symphony: Orchestrating Nigeria’s Digital Future’, organised by Fintech Association of Nigeria (FintechNGR), explained that the Nigerian Fintech ecosystem would require harmony between innovators and regulators, between inclusion and security, and between competition and collaboration, adding that only through such balance can Nigeria orchestrate a future that advances innovation, strengthens trust, and enhances financial inclusion.
As digital payments continue to dominate Nigeria’s retail and commercial transactions, banks say vigilance will be key to preventing festive cheer from turning into financial loss. For customers, banks stress that caution, verification and restraint, especially on unsecured networks, remain the most effective safeguards against fraud.
By Tim Akano
Leo Stan Ekeh (LSE) is an extraordinary human being. He is extremely hardworking, hugely brave, and massively intelligent. He is a shrewd businessman but with a cathedral-size heart of butterfly
Leo Stan Ekeh
I’m a product of LSE’s generosity. But not only me, I am close enough to know. We are uncountable.
I was always with him after office hours in his office twenty years ago when he was constructing a church in his place of birth. He was so committed to details and beauty that when the church was roofed and he went for inspection and discovered some misalignment, he instructed the contractor to remove the roof and redo it, without minding the extra cost coming from his pocket.
There was this physically challenged fellow that LSE bought a car for, including a driver to make life easier for her.
During one of his birthday celebrations, he told me, Tim, I am not inviting my friends for any birthday party this year, all the money I would have used in buying expensive wine, I am donating everything to charity
LSE & I
He actually looked for me when I started New Horizons. He read my interview in the Vanguard news paper and asked his staff to look for me.
Prayer:
May each of us receive a telephone call before the end of 2025 that will change our life’s trajectory for good for ever in Jesus name, Amen.
I did.!
Our conversation on that fateful Friday went like this:
LSE: Tim, I read your interview in the newspaper. I would like us to meet.
Tim: You are our LEADER in the Technology ecosystem, Sir.
I can come to your house tomorrow Saturday morning for a breakfast.
LSE: Tim, that’s good, I will be expecting you by 8am tomorrow in my house.
By 8am the following day, I was in his massive, intimidating house.
As I entered the premises I said a simple prayer: The God Almighty who is blessing LSE, please Daddy God be kind to me also in my entrepreneurship journey Amen.
That day the breakfast meeting went well. He wanted to see the man behind the ambitious vision of transforming the ICT education in Nigeria.
He saw tomorrow!
1 LSE First Intervention: Two years after I started my company, New Horizons, I ran out of cash, even to pay salary was a prayer item every 30th of the month. That was May, 2007 it remained just 72 hours for Heaven to fall on my head, metaphorically speaking, that is!
I needed N10M to stop HEAVEN FROM CRASHING ON MY HEAD!
Banks in Nigeria are irrelevant to Start-ups, except and until you START WALKING, Banks will not come to your assistance in Nigeria.
It is O.Y.O (On Your Own) for every Start-up. If you don’t have God 100% on your side, don’t dabble into entrepreneurship in Nigeria!
This is why over 80% of Start-ups failed in Nigeria. In America, it is about 50%.
LSE was in Abuja on this particular Thursday. I called him and requested to see him. He told me to come.
Our conversation went like this:
LSE: Tim, I know you are keeping well.
Tim: My chairman, I am strong in faith, but in reality, heaven is hot on my side o! I need help, Chairman.
LSE: What is the matter, Tim?
Tim: I need N10M soft loan to keep afloat. It is urgent, critical and time- bound.
LSE ok, Tim, see me on Monday (that meeting took place on a Thursday).
Tim: My chairman, I am not exaggerating the criticality of my situation. by Monday it would be too late because Heaven would crash on my head in another 72 hours without the N10M! And it would be all over.
LSE adjusted himself, he breathed in , he looked me straight in the eyes. I wouldn’t know what LSE saw in my eyes that day.
But he stood up, went to the inner room and he came out with his cheque book. He gave me an Access Bank cheque for N10M, which I later refunded 3 months later without interest.
I survived, heaven didn’t fall that day, glory be to God and thanks to LSE.
LSE intervention 2:
This time we had grown, having survived the ABIKU YEARS (The first 5 years of Start-up are the ABIKU YEARS, years of premature, sudden death. If you survive the first 5 years, your chances of living to celebrate your 20 years in business are bright). We did, all gratitude to God.
I got a business that required huge capital to execute- very big money, which was beyond my capacity.
I went to my destiny- helper again. He is never tired of seeing me. He picks my calls on the first ring. But I don’t abuse the access too. No frivolous conversations. No irrelevant calls. Every call is about matter and mission critical
This particular day LSE was looking extremely tired, having over flogged his body.
He told me he had been sleeping in the office for about 3 days, busy putting his papers together to enable him close a massive business deal, which he eventually got, after fighting like a lion whose cub was taken by a lone leopard!
LSE overwhelmed every opposition. He fought like Mohammed Alli, the world’s greatest boxer of all time. LSE won.
And that changed everything for him, too, forever. Fortune favours the Brave
Our conversation that day went like this:
LSE: Tim, congrats you are doing well, I can see. Indeed I instructed all my staff to make sure they read any article you published (“I felt flattered”).
Tim: Chairman, I need your help, KONGA is not ready to give me the products I needed on credit and I don’t have cash to pay and the client will not pay me until after 9 months.
Tough one, indeed.
LSE: Tim, I will be honest with you, there is no way KONGA would give you products worth N500M (10 years ago money!) on credit.
Indeed, we held a meeting on Monday over your matter, the resolution of the Zinox Group is that you must look for cash before you can get the products. Let me tell you, my staff made me to sign-off on our resolution that as the Chairman of Zinox , I, LSE will not go behind to do the opposite of what we all agreed to, and I signed. Tim, I am sorry, my hands are tied!
As of that time, some of the young people LSE helped disappointed him badly. So bad, some souls are ungrateful.
Tim: Chairman, I know some of the people you helped even went to the extent of wrongfully blackmailing you in the media. I know that for a fact.
But Chairman, I am different. I am Tim Akano, I won’t disappoint you.
I will remain eternally grateful if you can still think out- of -the box and help me out.
I added: Chairman, you recall you were the one who looked for me that you would give me a helping hand in life.
I think my last statement touched him.
LSE Tim, I will give you my personal cheque. Here is the cheque for you, take it to KONGA and pay for your goods to meet your deadline.
Tim On getting to KONGA, from my steps and tone, the staff knew something positive had happened.
I confidently presented my cheque to Loretta & Co, the lady managing our account in KONGA then
They were shell shocked that God pulled it through for me another time, using Leo Stan Ekeh.
There were many more positive interventions, which I will reserve for my memoir.
Lessons: The reason behind the rise and rise of Leo Stan Ekeh (LSE) has to do partly because of his massive generosity, most of them are done silently.
Yes, LSE is a shrewd businessman, but he has a heart of a butterfly.
2 LSE is unconquerable and himself and his lineage will remain so because of several lives he has impacted positively
3 We are all products of people’s generosity. No one is a self-made man. In my own corner, through the TIM AKANO FOUNDATION, I am giving back in thousands folds all the kindness I am enjoying from people like LSE & others. I’m not withholding any kindness from people who need it when it’s within my capacity. God saw my heart, too, that when he must have helped me to stand, I will light thousands of candles.
It was William Shakespeare who admonished his followers to tell him all the good things they wanted to tell him while he was still alive because tributes written in beautiful prose means nothing to a dead person.
I congratulate LSE children, they have a great father in and his legendary generosity will always speak for them up to the 4th generation., as the Holy Bible said. LSE children should be proud of their father, he is a Lion, an Eagle and a butterfly, (LEB) all together at the same time.
@LSE: Sir, if you manage to read this short public appreciation, which I was inspired to write in a wedding event (the couple is taking over one hour to come out, instead of joining people who are anxious, I decided to use my idle time to pay you this tribute today), I want you to feel proud of yourself; what you have achieved will take an average person 10 lifetimes to achieve.
Your positive numerous interventions in my entrepreneurship journey have germinated and I am also touching lives- like you- in thousands across Africa, not only in Nigeria, especially with regards to Youth Empowerment.
I am eternally grateful, my chairman, my destiny-helper.
My prayer for you my Chairman, LSE: The Lion, the Eagle, the Butterfly (LEB) is for God to keep you continuously in sound, divine health, peace and happiness- that you will still remain strong at 120 years of age like the Biblical Moses who miraculously escaped physical depreciation in his eyes, strength and mental magnitude.🙏
Gratitude!
Gratitude!!
Gratitude!!!
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