In January 2023, registered mobile users in Nigeria made a transaction valued at N2.37 trillion, according to statistics just made available by the Nigeria Inter-Banking Settlement Systems.
This is a 125 percent increase over the volume of transactions recorded during the same period previous year, according to the NIBSS.
The NIBSS is tasked with managing inter-bank payments in order to get rid of any potential bottlenecks related to inter-bank funds transfer and settlement. It is owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria and all licensed Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria.
This growth coincides with a cash shortage in the nation brought on by the redesign of some of the N200, N500, and N1000 notes.
The survey also showed that, compared to the 32.6 million transactions recorded in January 2022, the number of mobile transactions in Nigeria, the continent’s largest economy, increased by 55 percent on an annual basis to 108.1 million.
Remember that the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Governor announced plans to redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes in October 2022. He claimed that this redesign was necessary to help reduce the amount of cash in circulation and to support the cashless policy.
The redesign of the naira, according to Emefiele, will help to reduce occurrences of terrorism and kidnapping and deepen the country’s push toward a cashless society.
The new cashless policy of the CBN limits daily cash withdrawals at the counter to N500,000 for private persons and N5,000,000 for corporate entities.
Nigerians have lamented the lack of the new currency since the deadline for returning the old cash, even though withdrawals from the ATM for everyday usage were also restricted to N20,000 per person per day.
