Nigeria’s e-transaction growth slowed in 2024 on banks’ service disruptions
By Mary Adenike The service disruptions occasioned by infrastructure upgrade by several Nigerian banks last year dampened the growth of
- Weaker naira boosts value of e-payment transactions
By Mary Adenike
The service disruptions occasioned by infrastructure upgrade by several Nigerian banks last year dampened the growth of electronic transactions in the country.
Markets Reporters’ analysis of the data shows that the total volume of NIBSS Instant Payment platform (NIP) transactions rose by 16.7 percent to 11.3 billion in 2024. That compares with an increase of 86.1 percent in the previous year t0 9.68 billion.
“The banks’ system upgrade affected the confidence that people had in electronic transactions. You had a lot of failed and delayed transactions making people prefer to hold more cash,” Israel Odubola, a Lagos-based analyst, said.
According to the Central Bank of Nigeria, currency in circulation increased by 33.7 percent to 4.88 trillion in November 2024 from 3.65 trillion in January, while electronic transactions grew by 8.4 percent within the same period.
An Abuja-based banker who declined to be identified said the service disruptions were a disservice to the banking industry because a lot of people were unhappy with the failed and delayed transactions. “But the upgrade needed to be done at that time to improve the system. But hopefully this year, the volume will increase more.”
Some banks embarked on significant core banking system upgrades in the third and fourth quarter to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer experience.
Fikade Aina, an information technology specialist, noted that Sterling Bank customers experienced mobile banking access issues for nearly two weeks in September, while Zenith Bank simulated ₦52.57 ▲0.72% customers faced login difficulties for three days following an October 1 system update.
“First Bank customers were unable to access digital services for six days due to similar upgrades. GTBank and Access Bank both recently announced system upgrades. GTBank warned of service disruptions on October 13, while Access Bank postponed its upgrade initially scheduled for October 12 to avoid further inconveniences,” he said via his personal social media handle at the time.
While the volume of electronic transactions recorded a small increase, its value saw a surge compared to the previous year. According to NIBSS, the value rose to an all-time high of N1.07 quadrillion, up 79.6 percent from N600 trillion. That compares to the 54.9 percent increase in 2023.
“The naira depreciation largely contributed to the increase. NIBSS is not only for local currency transactions alone. It is an interbank settlement. So, any foreign currency bank settlement would have influenced that number,” Tajudeen Ibrahim, director of research and strategy at Chapel Hill Denham, said.
The naira has lost more than 70 percent of its value against the dollar following two sharp devaluations since July 2023. At the official market, the naira depreciated from 463.38/$ on June 9, 2023, to 1,522.68/$ as of January 28, 2025.
A further breakdown of the NIBSS data also shows that apart from NIP transactions, Point of Sale (PoS) volume increased to 1.45 billion from 1.39 billion while its value rose to N79.5 trillion from N46.9 trillion. The value of money mobile operations also grew by 69.5 percent to N79.5 trillion and volume rose by 28.9 percent to 3.04 billion
Electronic transactions in Africa’s most populous nation have witnessed significant growth in recent years, driven by factors such as the cashless policy of the central bank, increased internet and mobile phone penetration, and the development of innovative payment platforms.
NIP, an account-number-based, online-real-time interbank payment solution, was developed in 2011 by NIBSS. According to NIBSS, it is the Nigerian financial industry’s preferred funds transfer platform that guarantees instant value to the beneficiary.
Over the years, Nigerian banks have exposed NIP to their customers through their various channels including internet banking, bank branches, kiosks, mobile apps, unstructured supplementary service data, PoS, automatic teller machines.
