Nigeria’s payment channel transactions hit an all-time high of ₦86.1 trillion in 2017 according to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics. This is a 32% increase from the total transaction value of ₦65.1 trillion.
Total transaction volume for the year was a whopping ₦1.4 billion, a 58% rise from the same period in 2016. The report compiles data from cheques, POS, Mobile Money, Online web transactions, ATM, NIP, NEFT.
By Volumes
- NIBSS InterBank Payment (NIP) rose by a whopping 141% year on year posting a total of 370.8 million transactions in 2017.
- POS transactions also rose significantly topping 130% to close at 146 million transactions
- Internet web transaction grew by 106% to close at 29 million suggesting increase in adoption rate among Nigerians
- Mobile Payment remained rather flat growing by just 2% to record a total transaction of 47.8 million
- Cheque transactions continued to drop and were just 10.8 million transactions in 2017, representing an 8% drop.
By Value
- POS transactions rose the highest gaining 86% year on year closing at ₦6.4 trillion
- NIP transactions had over 65% of transaction value at ₦56 trillion. It gained 47% year on year, indicating a resilient and dominant preference for most Nigerians.
- It also shows Nigerians still prefer to make transfers via internet banking portals.
- Mobile payments also had a strong showing, growing by 46% to close the year at ₦1.1 trillion.
- A lot of venture capital funds have poured into the mobile money space in recent years as startups hustle to tap into a growing but underserved market.
Key takeaways
- Mobile money is growing by value but not fast enough in terms of transaction volume
- This suggests early adopters increasingly rely on it to pay for transactions.
- At ₦23,000 per transaction, mobile payment rose 43%, the highest in 2017 and the only positive gain (excluding NEFT) that rose based on value per transaction metrics.
- One could thus infer that there is an increase in confidence relying on mobile payments for transactions
- People still use cheque payments for transactions and definitely cannot be ignored. A transaction value of ₦5.3 trillion still represents 6.2% of the market (8.9%: 2016) and is still twice POS, mobile and web payments combined.
Volumes of transaction
Value of transaction
Data source: Nigerian Bureau of Statistics