The Central Bank of Nigeria has said that the total value of electronic funds transfer in the country has risen to N80bn per day.
The Deputy Governor, Operations, CBN, Mr. Tunde Lemo, disclosed this in a statement made available to our correspondent on Monday.
He said that the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System recorded over N20bn daily transaction by value, while the Nigeria Electronic Funds Transfer conducted about N60bn transactions daily.
NIBSS provides the infrastructure for automated processing, settlement of payments and fund transfer instructions among banks, discount houses and card companies in Nigeria.
It is owned equally by all licensed banks in Nigeria and the CBN. Discount houses operating in Nigeria also hold substantial shares.
A NEFT payment is an irrevocable fund transfer instruction.
Lemo noted that both the value and volumes of cash transactions executed through the NIBSS and the NEFT had doubled when compared with the use of cheques.
He said, “We have forgotten that the cash-less also includes high volume payment transactions such as the NIBSS Instant Payment. The NIP now moves between N20bn and N40bn worth of transactions daily.
“The cash-less Lagos also includes the NEFT. Through NEFT, we have tens of thousands of transactions valued over N60bn daily. So between NEFT and NIP, we have transactions now that have more than doubled the cheque transaction volume.”
Speaking on the cash-less policy, Lemo said the additional states – Rivers, Kano, Anambra, Ogun and Abia – as well as the FCT were chosen because of the large volume of cash transactions in their major cities.
He said, “Recall that we started this programme actually in January last year and we are only just continuing. We are only just moving to phase two; so we have learnt all the ropes in phase one in cash-less Lagos and we believe we are ready to roll out to other six locations in Nigeria.”
Lemo said last week that the planned extension of the cash-less policy to the six states, including the Federal Capital Territory, from July 1 would still hold.
Lemo, in a statement, said in order to achieve the target, the apex bank and lenders had already drawn a roadmap, which was being followed meticulously.
He said, “We are ready to roll out in the six other states and there would be no change in date. We are not shifting the goal post. We have a roadmap, which is being followed and we are fully prepared.”
The cash-less policy is aimed at reducing the dominance of cash in the system.
It specifies penal charges for individuals and corporate organisations that want to withdraw or lodge cash above the prescribed limits.
Under the policy, the banking watchdog pegged the daily cumulative cash withdrawal or deposit limit for individual accounts at N500,000 per day and N3m per day for corporate accounts.