Between the first seven months of 2019 and the same period in 2022, mobile transactions increased by N8.981 trillion.
According to data from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System, they have risen from N289.12bn to N9.27tn.
This is because the value of cheque transactions fell by 31.42 percent from N2.67 trillion in January to July 2019 to N1.83 trillion in 2022.
Due to COVID-19, the use of mobile payment gateways began to rise in 2020, while the use of cheques began to decline around the same time.
While mobile transactions increased as a result of COVID, the total value of cheques cleared began to decline. The value of cleared cheques was N2.67tn in the first seven months of 2019, N1.86tn in 2020, N1.85tn in 2021, and N1.83tn in 2022.
According to the NIBSS’s ‘Instant Payments – 2020 Annual Statistics,’ mobile devices drove electronic payments in 2020, accounting for 43% of total transactions. It went on to say that USSD was used in 35% of the transactions and mobile devices were used in 78% of total transfer transactions.
According to Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission, one advantage of financial services riding on telecom infrastructure was the provision of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, which facilitated financial transactions.
The number of active GSM subscribers increased from 173.63 million in January 2019 to 206.08 million in June 2022 during the review period.
The GSMA, the global body for telecommunications companies, noted in its 2021 mobile money industry report that “while 2020 saw unprecedented challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the mobile money industry witnessed strong efforts in striving towards cashless societies, entering strategic partnerships to expand the horizons of digital payments, and developing new and robust interoperable payment systems.”
