New Telegraph

Mobile transfers hit N502bn in one month

Bank customers in Nigeria transferred a total of N502 billion over mobile in April, New Telegraph has learnt. According to the data released by the Nigeria Inter- Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS), this came as the highest monthly mobile transactions since the beginning of the NIBSS mobile inter-scheme.

In the same month last year, the value of mobile transactions stood at N172 billion, making the April 2021 figure a 191 per cent increase. Compared with the previous month’s record, this also showed a 4.5 per cent growth over N480 billion recorded as mobile transfers in March this year. While the surge in the use of the mobile platform for financial transactions could also be attributed to the coronavirus pandemic, which forced many to limit cash-based transactions, industry analysts said the growth indicated that efforts to deepen financial inclusion by banks, fintech, and telecommunications companies are yielding positive results. The NIBSS statistics showed that there was also a massive growth in the volume of mobile transactions when placed side by side with the figures in April 2020.

The volume of transactions in April this year stood at 18.3 million, a 157 per cent increase over 7.1 million recorded in the same period of 2020. Similarly, the NIBSS data showed that electronic payments through the various platforms made available by banks and facilitated by NIBSS sustained their gains in the period under review. Specifically, the value of bills paid through the electronic channel rose to N186 billion in April. Compared with N85 billion recorded in the same period last year, this represented a 118 per cent growth year-on-year.

The April figure was, however, a decline from N212 billion ebills payments recorded in March this year. E-Bills Pay is an accountbased, online real-time product that facilitates the payment of bills from an account. It ensures instant credit of payments and receipt of collections on behalf of Billers/ Merchant recruited on the platform. Currently, the platform is used for payments such as utility bills, cable TV subscriptions, hotel and airline bookings, school fees, and airtime top-ups. According to NIBSS data, more Nigerians are now embracing payment of bills electronically as opposed to paying with cash. Meanwhile, NIBSS, in its 2020 Instant Payments Report, attested to the rising prefer-ence of mobile by Nigerians for financial transactions.

“On transaction channels, mobile remains the preferred channel with 43 per cent of total transactions, while USSD remains a close second with 35 per cent of transactions. These remain largely unchanged from 2019. This indicates that 78 per cent of total transfer transactions were carried out using a mobile device, NIBSS stated in the report. NIBSS added that mobile payments and USSD continued to experience steady growth, growing by 84 per cent and 80 per cent respectively year-on-year. “With 49.5 per cent smartphone ownership and an estimated 97 million mobile internet users, there are strong indications that mobile and USSD payments will see significant growth in the short-medium term,” the company stated. Data released earlier by NIBSS also indicated that there had been steady growth in the use of mobile for financial transactions in Nigeria.

According to the 2020 figure, a total of N3.05 trillion was transferred through mobile last year. Hitting an all-time, this represents a whopping 268 per cent increase over N828 billion mobile deals recorded in 2019. The volume of the mobile inter-scheme transactions also rose significantly in the year. From 41.2 million transactions recorded in the previous year, mobile deals rose to 132.9 million in 2020. This represents a 223 per cent increase year-onyear.

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