E-bills payment swells by 8.57% in February despite dip in volume

Zainab Iwayemi

Data obtained from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System has shown that there was an 8.57 per cent increase in the e-bills payment from N155.53 billion in January to N168.86 billion in February 2021. Meanwhile, the volume of transactions carried out on the electronic bill payment platform fell month-on-month, by 8.86 per cent from 101,578 to 92,571 during the same period.

The report shows that while e-bills payment value rose by 106.5 per cent from N78.4 billion in January 2020, the e-bills payment volume was an 8.78 increase from 85,092 recorded in February 2020.

Similarly, the year 2021 saw the total value of the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System Instant Payment transactions summed up to N18.32 trillion in February, the digit represents a 0.97 per cent decrease from N18.50 trillion recorded in January 2021. While a total volume of 230.25 million was recorded on financial transactions on the instant payment platform in February, which shows a 0.65 per cent decrease from 228.76 million transactions recorded in January the report shows.

Also, the value of NIP transactions rose to 83.75 per cent in February 2021, compared to the N9.97 billion recorded in the previous year. In addition, the volume of NIP transactions grew by 91.46 per cent from 120.26 million recorded in February 2020.

In February 2021, Point of Sales deals were worth N468.90bn which marks a 4.15 per cent decline from N489.23bn recorded in January 2021. As the volume of transactions carried out using PoS machines recorded a 1.04 per cent month-on-month increase to 71.62 million in February from 70.88 million transactions registered in January 2021.

Similarly, PoS transaction volume saw a 55.45 per cent increase from 46.07 million transactions in the previous year while value of PoS transactions had a 43.82 per cent year-on-year increase from N326.03bn deals in February 2020. In total, the number of PoS deployed in the country increased to 484,582 in February from 475,494 recorded in January.

Nigerians performed 15.34 million mobile transactions in February 2021, an increase of 2.88 per cent from 14.91 million transactions registered in January 2021, and an increase of 87.07 per cent from 8.20 million transactions in February 2020, a report by NIBSS reveals.

Meanwhile, mobile transaction value increased by 174.97 per cent from N148.31bn while the value of mobile inter-scheme transactions also saw an increase of 4.42 per cent as it grew to N407.81bn in January from N390.54bn recorded in January.