Mobile transactions in Nigeria have jumped by 4,009.58 per cent to hit N8.07tn within a five-year period as the number of telecommunication subscribers rises by 34.91 per cent to 195,128,265.
This is according to data from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System and Nigerian Communications Commission.
According to mobile inter-scheme transaction data tracked on the NIBBS portal, mobile transactions increased from N196.29bn in 2017 to N8.07tn by the end of 2021.
This increase in value was a 5,445.07 per cent hike in mobile channel uptake within the time under review as mobile transaction volume increased from 5,130,716 in 2017 to 284,501,722 in 2021.
In 2017, 5,130,716 mobile transactions were worth N196.29bn; 7,229,878 transactions were worth N292.02bn in 2018; 41,212,074 transactions were worth N828.10bn in 2019; and 132,978,782 transactions were worth N3.05tn in 2020.
In 2021, the volume of mobile transactions surged to 284,501,722 as the value hit N8.07tn. The NIBBS has attributed this increase in mobile channel uptake to changing behaviour of bank customers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a report titled ‘Instant Payments – 2020 Annual Statistics’, it said the COVID-19 pandemic changed the e-payments landscape, and accelerated the adoption of instant payments as more people switched to electronic channels for funds exchange.
It added that mobile devices drove electronic payment in 2020, as it accounted for 43 per cent of total transactions in 2020, while 35 per cent of the transactions were with USSD, indicating that 78 per cent of the total transfer transactions were carried out using mobile devices.
Within the period under review, the number of telecom subscribers increased by 34.91 per cent from 144,631,678 in 2017 to 195,463,898 in 2021, according to data from the NCC.
The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, had recently said one visible area of beneficial financial service riding on telecom infrastructure was the provision of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data for financial transactions across various financial institutions’ platforms.
According to him, this has brought ease to financial transactions. In 2020, mobile money transactions rose to $490bn in Nigeria and other sub-Saharan Africa, according to Visa.
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