Electronic payments through Point of Sale terminals have risen by 191 per cent to N241bn in 2014, a report from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System has shown.

The NIBSS is owned by all licensed banks, Central Bank of Nigeria and discount houses.

It operates the nation’s automated clearing system, which facilitates electronic clearing of cheques and other paper based instruments, as well as electronic funds transfers.

The Chairman of the NIBSS, Alhaji Suleiman Barau, who is also the Deputy Governor, Operations, CBN, said the company’s profit before tax rose by 249 per cent to N2.82bn for the year ended December 31st 2013.

He spoke at the NIBSS’s 2014 Annual General Meeting in Lagos on Friday.

“The financial performance of the company was greatly impacted by the impressive business activities recorded during the year,” Barau noted.

He said the NIBSS’s gross income grew by 32.33 per cent from N3.88bn to N5.13bn, adding that the company closed the year with a profit before taxation of N2.82bn, which represents a growth of 249.31 per cent over the previous year’s figure of N806.59m.

According to the chairman, the NIBSS has witnessed tremendous growths in electronic payment trends on its platforms as consumers spending habits increasingly shifted towards the use of alternative e-payment channels aside the Automated Teller Machines.

This, he said, was evidenced by the historic recording of over 10 million e-payment transactions on its platforms during the month of July 2014, compared to the average monthly transaction volume of eight million in 2013.

He added that “this represents 24 per cent growth and is a clear indication of the potential for e-payments in Nigeria and also the need for greater attention and investments to enhance the NIBSS infrastructure.”

Barau further observed that both the NIBSS Electronic Fund Transfer and Instant Payment products had enjoyed steady adoption over the years.

This, he said, was enhanced by the CBN’s mandate for government and corporate entities to make all salary and administrative payments electronic.

He said, “The volume of NEFT transactions increased by 29.51 per cent from 29.20 million (N13.61tn) in 2013 to 37.82 million (N14.93tn) in 2014 while customers’ affinity towards instant payment has seen NIP grow in volume by 204.03 per cent, from 9.22 million (N7.6tn) in 2013 to 28.03 million (N15.80tn) in 2014.

“Cheque clearing as a key product of NIBSS has evolved over time from being purely paper-based to electronic via the implementation of the Cheque Truncation System deployed by the NIBSS to the banking industry.”

He said through CTS, clearing period had reduced from T+3 to T+2 in Nigeria and consequently, cheques processing increased to 15.4 million (N7.79tn) in 2014, compared to the 12.23 million (N7.15tn) recorded in 2013, representing an increase of 25.96 per cent.

He further noted that “NIBSS serves as the Payments Terminal Service Aggregator for the financial industry as part of the Cashless Nigeria Initiative which requires all PoS terminal operating within Nigeria to connect directly to NIBSS through the NIBSS Central Terminal Management System.”

Punch