‘Visa’s vision is to bring more Nigerians into the formal banking system’

Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. In this interview with Business Day’s PATRICK ATUANYA, Visa’s Head of Products for Anglophone West Africa HOLLY JONES talks about the payment firms future plans for Nigeria, cashless policy, and challenges of e-payments in the country , among other issues. Excerpts:

Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do for Visa

My name is Holly Jones and I am the Head of Products for Anglophone West Africa.

Tell us a little bit about Visa’s future plans for the Nigerian market?

Visa’s vision is to bring more people into the formal banking system through access to electronic banking systems and services to provide Nigerians with a safer, more convenient and reliable way to pay and be paid. Electronic payments are critical when developing a strong, modern economy. Visa products can promote transparency and accountability, reduce transaction costs and decrease the size of the grey or informal economy, all of which helps to stimulate economic growth and employment.

All evidence points to the fact that the more people who join the banking system, the more stable it becomes. This in turn has a positive and lasting effect on an economy, social reform and government efficiency. Visa remains committed to finding new ways to enable its client financial institutions to deliver improved services to the banked and unbanked. We continue our support in market by extending our products, services and payments expertise; providing extensive financial literacy tools and resources; and developing key partnerships focused on finding new ways to reach the financially underserved.

What future do you foresee for the cashless policy in Nigeria?

I have been working in the Nigerian market for almost a decade and I have seen huge evolution in the payments landscape.  This has been driven by the card schemes as well as the Central Bank of Nigeria not only through the cashless policy but also by regulation intended to help shape the industry as a whole.  Looking ahead, the next decade should yield a period of even more rapid changes particularly if we can create an enabling environment for new technologies.  The aim has to be on not only getting the banked population to move more of their spending to electronic payments but also on how to solve the challenges of the unbanked.  Only then will we really have a cashless policy for Nigeria as a whole.

What would you say is the major challenge of e-payments in Nigeria?

In the past, I would have said the reliability in terms of networks is a major challenge as without a network, the payments simply cannot go through.  This remains a challenge however we have seen dramatic improvements in this space.  Fundamentally, the biggest challenge that I see today in e-payments in Nigeria is that we have not solved for the informal sector where the majority of retail is done.  Until we have acceptance in the markets across Nigeria, we will not truly be able to capture a large percentage of consumer spend.  The technology is there to solve for this and I am very excited to be in payments in Nigeria to be able to witness the changes that are coming.

Asides initiatives like this, what are your plans to continue growing debit usage and acceptance in Nigeria?

We continuously work with our client banks to develop strategies across the lifecycle of payments – from acquisition (obtaining a new cardholder) and activation (getting the cardholder to activate the payment card) to usage (driving the cardholder to use the card at point-of-sale) and retention (keeping the customer an active cardholder of the bank).  We also drive improvements in the acceptance space.  This work helps us to collectively develop the right strategies to grow usage and acceptance.  More and more our focus is on how we overlay new technologies to drive the changes that are required to make the impact that we all aspire to make.

Despite the increasing number of transactions through ATMs, Point of Sale (POS) transactions remain quite low. What is responsible for this?

I think that there are two main points to address here.  The first is that there are not widespread POS machines in the places where the average Nigerian spends the majority of his money (markets, many fuel stations, informal eateries etc).  This is one thing that we are looking to fix and this will undoubtedly drive a change in behaviour away from cash.  The second challenge is that even where there is acceptance, people do not always use their payment cards.  There are many reasons for why this happens – perception of reliability, habit, lack of confidence to name a few – but we must address this as an industry.  Initiatives such as the Visa local merchant offers will start to give cardholders another reason to take the step to try using their card over cash.

What are the Visa Local Offers about?

The Nigeria local offers have been introduced to bring even more value to Visa cardholders and to encourage point-of-sale usage in alignment with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s cashless policy.

Can you please take us through the mechanism of the local offers?

We have a wide variety of discounts and exclusive offers at over 100 locations including grocery shops, restaurants, cafes, health and beauty and electronics.  The offers cut across Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja at this time but we are looking to expand this further.  We are very excited at the adoption rates of the offers, even in the first few weeks, particularly in health & beauty as well as general retail segments.  Example of merchants where we have offers in the health and wellness segment are BM Pro, House of Tara, Medplus, Mopheth Pharmacies, B Natural The Spa Group, Venivici Healthclub & Urban Spa, MB Hammam, Bodyline Fitness and Gym, Ajali Handmade Naturals & Spa.  Example of merchants where we have offers in the retail segment are Beko, Grand Square (Ikeja), Supermart.ng and Farmers Place.

 

How can consumers participate in the local offers?

It is very simple!  As long as you have a Visa card (credit, debit or prepaid) you can access the discounts or exclusive offers every time you pay with your Visa card at participating locations.  In order to find out where the discounts apply, you can download the Visa Explore app or visit www.visa.com.ng/localoffers for a full list of merchants, the stores where the discounts/ offers apply and full terms and conditions.  You will also see signs in the participating locations that encourage you to ‘Ask for your Special Offer here’.

What is the duration of the promotion?

The Nigerian local offers are intended to be a long-term focus.  We do not see the offers as a short-term campaign but rather a value-added benefit that we intend to continue to refine and improve over the months and years to come.  We intend to monitor the redemptions of the offers and use this data to inform us which offers are really appreciated by our cardholders so that more of the same can be added.