Chike Onwuegbuchi Cashless Policy: Active PoS Terminals Hit 30,000 Total active point of sale (PoS) terminals, electronic devices used for verifying and processing transactions at merchant locations nationwide have hit a record high of 30, 000 suggesting that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s) policy of cashless regime is gaining momentum, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal. Before the introduction of the CBN policy to aggressively reduce the use of cash in transactions in January, there were only 4,000 active PoS terminals in the whole country. Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations revealed that the tremendous rise in the number of active PoS terminals deployed across the country was buoyed by the devices’ acceptance in merchant locations such as hotels, supermarkets among others. Under the CBN’s cashless regime, PoS terminals acquirers otherwise banks were created and mandated to handover the terminals to Payments Terminal Service Providers (PTSP) among them ValuCard Plc, Paymaster, Etop Nigeria, Easyfuel and Citiserve to drive the cashless policy. In the new arrangement PTSPs will be required to enter into contracts/service level agreements with the acquirers that will clearly state the terms and conditions of their support services, including the fee structure and timeline for fee settlement. Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the successful implementation of this guideline has given rise to the increase in the number of deployed PoS in the country. The cashless policy of CBN commenced in Lagos last January as a pilot scheme expected to be extended to other major cities in June this year. According to the cashless economic policy unveiled by CBN in April last year individual and corporate customers would be restricted to free daily cumulative cash withdrawals and lodgments of N150,000 and N1 million respectively. It further states that ‘individuals and corporate organisations that make cash transactions above the limits would be charged a penal fee of N100/thousand and N200/thousand respectively for amounts above the cumulative limits.’ In other words, anyone depositing or withdrawing any amount above N150, 000 would be charged N100 for every additional N1, 000 while for corporate customers, the charge is N200. The policy, which was jointly formulated by CBN and the Bankers Committee, is intended to help in reducing the dominance of cash in the economy. The 30,000 PoS are basically terminals deployed at merchant locations for payment of transactions and not including terminals deployed at bank branches which are for lodgment confirmation as well as fund transfer.
Cashless Policy: Active PoS Terminals Hit 30,000
