Mobile money transaction value also grew to N819 million.

——————

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has said that the value of Point of Sales, POS, transactions has grown significantly from N38 million per month in 2012 to N24 billion monthly in June 2014.

The CBN stated this on Monday in a report published on the monitoring of e-payment transactions since the introduction of the cashless policy in the country.

The report noted that mobile money transaction value also grew to N819 million monthly during the period.

The POS transactions increased in volume from less than 2,000 in January 2012 to 1.6 million per month as at June 2014, with over 150,000 POS terminals presently operational across the country and operated by 22 licensed mobile money operators.

Licensed Payment Terminal Service providers, the report said, increased from five to 10, raising POS terminal penetration across the country.

The report noted that the Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System’s instant transfer had increased in volume from 87,000 transactions a month in January 2012 to 3.1 million transactions a month as at June 2014.

The report added that NIBSS instant transfers also increased in value from N51 billion monthly from January 2012 to over N1.5 trillion monthly as at June 2014.

On the progress made so far with cashless policy since its introduction, the report showed that implementation of the first and second phases in Lagos and six other states were successfully completed.

Similarly, the report noted the progress recorded in the use of tokenisation and encryption for electronic transactions, adding that security measures in cards was also enhanced.

It said that the CBN would continue to monitor and review the cashless policy, while implementing connectivity agreement with NIGCOMSAT.

The report said efforts were in place to ensure implementation of proposed internet hot spots in the 774 local governments before the end of the year.

(NAN)