Nigerians carried out N12.8 trillion worth of mobile transactions between January and September 2022, more than double the amount recorded in the same period last year and even much more than what was recorded in 2020, according to Nairametrics.
This is according to data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) for 2018 to 2022.
According to the NIBSS, recorded mobile inter-scheme transactions in Nigeria grew by a whopping 153% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2022 from N5.07 trillion recorded in the comparable period of 2021.
The total transactions for the current year represent an even higher margin when compared to the same period of 2020 (N1.89 trillion), 2019 (N461.4 billion), and 2018 (N216.4 billion).
Mobile and electronic forms of banking have been on the rise, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic, which necessitated the use of more cashless forms of payment across the country. A closer look at the data tracked by the NIBSS showed that the volume of mobile transactions rose by over 132% in the review period.
Specifically, a total of 438.28 million transactions were recorded through mobile, higher than the 284.5 million transactions recorded in 2021.
Similarly, a sum of N6.05 trillion was spent through POS transactions in the first nine months of the year, a little below the N6.4 trillion recorded in the full-year 2021, with three months left till the end of the year.
The use of mobile and other digital forms of payment in Nigeria has also resulted in gains for Nigerian commercial banks and telecom services providers. That is because most of these transactions attract some charges for banks even as telcos gain from increased data consumption.
A review of the financials of listed telecommunication providers in the country showed impressive growth in data revenue. MTN Nigeria generated a whopping sum of N549.2 billion from data in the first nine months of the year, a 50% increase from the N366.18 billion earned during the comparable period in 2021.
Similarly, Airtel earned $431 million from their data business between April and September 2022, representing a 22.8% increase from $351 million recorded in the comparable period of last year.
Banks have also raked a fortune from commissions charged on electronic banking transactions. FBN Holdings, in the first nine months of the year, recorded N39.98 billion as e-banking revenue, Access Bank (N49.39 billion), and GTBank raked in N15.18 billion.