In March of this year, there were 2.7 million Point of Sale (PoS) machines in use throughout Nigeria, thanks to the efforts of both individuals and merchants.
This was revealed in the most recent electronic payment data that was just made public by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS).
When compared to the 1.8 million deployed terminals over the same period last year, this represents a 50% annual increase.
According to the data from March 2024, 864, 753 new PoS terminals have been installed in the past year.
The number of deployed PoS terminals is still less than the total number of registered terminals, though.
As of March 2024, 3.730 million PoS devices had been registered nationwide, according to NIBSS data. This indicates that 1.04 million terminals are either not yet deployed or have stopped being operational.
Point-of-Service transactions
In Nigeria, the amount of transactions made via PoS terminals has been steadily increasing over time. Comparing the March 2024 statistics to the same month in the previous year, however, reveals a decrease.
The value of PoS transactions in March was N961.8 billion, based on NIBSS data. When compared to the N1.15 trillion recorded in March 2023, this is a 16.5% decrease.
However, the record-breaking PoS value in March of last year can be attributed to the extraordinary cash scarcity that prevailed at the time, forcing a large number of Nigerians to adopt electronic transactions.
Aside from the cash shortage in 2023, several reasons, including retailers’ quick acceptance of PoS as a payment method, are driving the rise of PoS transactions in Nigeria.
PoS is also filling the void left by the lack of bank-deployed ATMs since many Nigerians now make their withdrawals through PoS agents.
Additional details
A new mandate that compels PoS operators to register their businesses with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) by July 7 of this year is now causing problems for the over 1.9 million PoS operators in the nation. A significant number of operators, being small enterprises, are concerned that the registration process is placing undue strain on their operations.
PoS operators have chosen to file a lawsuit to contest the legitimacy of the regulation, according to Elegbede Oluwasegun, National General Secretary of the Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria (AMMBAN).
Hussaini Magaji, Registrar-General of the CAC, asserted that the registrations were compliant with the CBN’s guidelines and regulatory criteria.
He said that the 2013 CBN recommendations on agent banking and Section 863, Subsection 1 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, CAMA 2020 supported the move equally.
He continued by saying that the registration is intended to protect fintech companies’ operations, protect consumers’ interests, and boost the national economy.
