In the past years, Nigeria has recorded an increase in the number of point of Sales (POS) merchants all over the country. Though faced with recent challenges such as lack of electricity, poor data connection and bank network service, the rate of POS transactions has continued to break resistance levels.
The growing number of POS merchants may be attested to the lack of employment opportunities in the country, as most merchants are young adults, fresh into the labor market.
According to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System, a total of 6.05 trillion naira has been spent in the first 9 months of this year and the value is projected to rise year by year.
POS transaction between January 2019 and November 2021 was recorded at an estimated 13.67 Trillion Naira and the value of September’s POS output shows a 32% increase when compared to the estimate of 556.4 billion Naira recorded in September 2021.
Reasons for these monthly and yearly increases may be attested to the inadequacies of banks providing enough ATMs, especially in rural areas that have limited numbers of banks in a community.
Another may be the profits vendors gain from the business, as customers usually bear the charges of each of these transactions.
A significant piece of information to note is that all of this increase also affects the number of cheque transactions in the country, which put the country’s plans to move cashless in order, as it is only expected that the values increase as the months and years roll out.
