Merchants in Nigeria that deployed point of sale terminals (PoS) and using them as means of payment of goods and services recorded transactions value of N9 billion on their terminals in the month of April this year, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek has learnt.
The value was achieved in 500 million transactions on 117, 000 active PoS deployed at merchant locations across the country.
Deployment and use of PoS form part of Central Bank of Nigeria promoted cashless economy initiative’ encourages Nigerians to use electronic means of transactions against the use of cash.
Against this backdrop, that the apex bank rolled out some directives and policy statement aimed at strengthening electronic channels of payments.
Among them is the guideline on PoS card acceptance services aimed at increasing transactions through the device.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations revealed that 190, 000 PoS terminals have been registered as at April ending against 180, 000 registered at the end of January this year.
The process of deploying a point of sale terminal requires the PTSPs to first register such terminal with Payments Terminal Service Aggregator for the industry which is Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) before such terminal will be deployed.
The essence of registration of terminal before deployment in the present arrangement is to ensure that the terminal commences transaction immediately as it is deployed.
Further findings showed that the value of transactions recorded in April is a reduction compared to January this year which recorded a weekly transaction value in excess of N3 billion.
It would be recalled that CBN said it will extend the cashless policy to Rivers and Ogun States, Kano, Anambra and Abia States as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) from July 1st this year.
The cashless policy, whose implementation began in Lagos in January, last year, is aimed at reducing the dominance of cash in the system.
The policy specifies penal charges for individuals and corporate organizations that want to withdraw or lodge cash above prescribed limits. Under the policy, the CBN pegged the daily cumulative cash withdrawal or deposit limit for individual accounts at N500, 000 per day and N3 million per day for corporate accounts.
More so, the 117, 000 PoS does not include terminals deployed at bank branches which are designated for lodgment confirmation as well as fund transfer.