Electronic Transfers Hit 3.5 Billion In 2022 As Nigeria Maintains 6th Position Globally
The decision of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) to turn the economy to a cashless one is fast yielding positive results as the volume of electronic transactions in Nigeria rose to 3.5 billion in 2022, thus maintaining Nigeria’s ranking in the global Countries’ electronic transaction ranking.
This was confirmed by Ken Ife, a renowned economist, London Enterprise Ambassador and Chief Economic Strategist, Economic Community of West African States Commission
(ECOWAS) .
According to Ife, “. . . We are even ahead of America, which was 1.2 billion while Nigeria was 1.8 billion transactions a year; while those ahead of us are India, China and South Korea, but Nigeria was doing really well.
And then in 2022, Nigeria’s transactions doubled and went to 3.5 billion transactions, which was equivalent to $200 billion turnover”. The value of cash transactions has over time, been on a steady increase as confirmed by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS) in a recent report.
Transactions worth N38.9 trillion were performed electronically during the period and is the highest monthly transaction record on the platform.
More report from the data also showed that from January to November 2022, the total value of NIP deals in the last 11 months was N345 trillion. Nigeria recorded a success rate on a global scale, as it made the list of top 10 countries with the highest electronic transactions.
A 2020 data on the global payment ranking by ACI Worldwide and GlobalData research, showed that India and China led in e-payments volume globally, with 25.5 billion and 15.7 billion transactions respectively.
South Korea (6 billion), Thailand (5.2 billion) and the United Kingdom (2.8 billion) followed behind to take the first five positions.
Nigeria came in 6th position with real-time payments volume of 1.91 billion, surprisingly topping the United States in 9th position with 1.21 billion payment volume.
With the volume of real-time transactions in Nigeria surging to 3.5 billion, Nigeria’s economic growth and financial inclusion will gain more ground as the country looks towards improving electronic and real-time payments.
