Consumer education key to growing card usage among Nigerians – Ashaye

Visa recently rewarded winners of its #NotATourist campaign. The two-part campaign involved the social media presence of its customers and use of their Visa Cards. In this interview, Ade Ashaye, country manager, Visa West Africa, explains the details of the campaign, how to grow card usage among Nigerians and the challenges involved. Excerpt:

Give a brief detail of what this #NotATourist Campaign is all about.

With the #NotAtourist campaign, there is a recognition that the social media and the social aspect of the society we are in today is starting to play a role, starting to play a part in how we think, how we communicate and how we share. The story is that ok, how do you work on the fact that we share differently now to the way we did a few years ago?

How do we incorporate that into campaigns to really show that one, your Visa card is not just an ATM card; two, it is not just a payment card; but that it is really just a part of how you live your life. Really that was the foundation of the campaign. I’m very, very happy with the result.

I think they mentioned that a total of about 120,000 transactions qualified for the main draw. I will have to find out how many people posted, how many pictures were there? But it was very, very interesting. Yeah, socials is at the core of everything we do and we see more of this moving forward. So we have to change the way we communicate and this campaign is just an example of that.

Can you give us more details on how people entered for the competition and how the results were collated?

There were two parts of the competition. For the picture part, what you had to do was take a picture and put it on Twitter with the ash tag, ‘NotATourist’ and put ‘@VisaNigeria’ and then we know you are part of the campaign, and then you are entered. That part of the campaign involved weekly draws and winning things like iPhones. That lasted for eight weeks.  That was part one of the campaign.

The second part of the campaign was a spend-and-win campaign. There you had to spend any transaction of $300 or above either on the internet or abroad and then your transaction would qualify to go into the draws. Then there is an electronic draw and what happens afterwards involves the regulators.

In Nigeria, we have a very keen regulator that ensures that these things are always fair and we had the draws and the winners were chosen from among 120,000 qualified transactions.

Did the people who qualified for the final draws emerge from the first stage of the campaign that had to do with taking and posting pictures?

No. These were two parallel competitions. One (the second one) was about what you spent either on e-commerce or abroad – it had to about #300 or above and that transaction would go into the bucket and then we choose a winner form that bucket.

The other was about when you post your picture on Twitter, or your comment or your twit with the ash tag, ‘NotATourist’ and you put in ‘@VisaNigeria’ to enter the campaign and two ran at the same time.

Since you seem delighted at the result of this campaign, is Visa likely to come up with similar campaign?

I think what we’ll see is that social is at the core of everything. So I think we’ll see more of social-based campaigns; we’ll certainly see more of such campaigns. What I’ll like to see is that we evolve the campaign mechanics for this campaign; let’s keep on evolving. Let’s keep on learning and see how people respond to it. I’ll like to see more social based campaigns; maybe slightly different from this one as we evolve.

On a more general term, how do you assess the e-payment system in Nigeria?

Right now, we are in a nascent stage. And we will be for a little while. I think we are in an environment at a time in history when the whole ecosystem is changing. And we have to be very careful (and I think the regulators recognize this) about how we manage that ecosystem.

If you manage the ecosystem based on the business of yesterday, you won’t get the business of tomorrow that you should get. So we are very conscious of how social is changing everything. How tokenization is a new word that is changing everything; how cloud-based payments are changing everything; all those things are coming into the mix.

And how do you make sure that you can continue with the security, the reliability, the transparency and the oversight that you need whilst encouraging the evolution of the ecosystem that drives more economic growth through greater, increased electronic payments?

We are in a point of change right now but it’s a great place to be for a nascent market like Nigeria because we are not going to be stuck in old technologies, we are not going to make millions of dollars of investments in old technologies which would hinder us moving forward. I think it’s a beautiful place to be right now.

The e-payment system in Nigeria must have some challenges. What is the major one the system is faced with right now?

When I look at countries and their payment systems around the world, there a number of challenges that they all face; and some face some challenges to a greater degree and some others face other challenges to a greater degree. I think that the challenge that we face in Nigeria to a greater degree is the one that says we have got lots of cards and depending whose numbers you believe, it could be 20million, and it could be 40 million. The fact is, we have got lots of cards but what we don’t have is card usage apart from pulling cash out of the ATM. I think the biggest challenge we have got to face right now is, how do we convince the consumers to use their cards for more than just pulling cash out of the ATM?

And I think there are a number of factors that are influencing that, including the fact we talk about the availability of PoS terminals; actually, we have got lots of PoS terminals! In the whole of Africa, the only country with more PoS terminals is South Africa; and even that is questionable whether they have got more or less. Its touch and go and depends on whose numbers you believe.

The reality is they have been doing it for 40 years.  So we have got lots of PoS terminals. But are they in the right place? Do the customers understand that they can use their cards for more than just ATM cards? And they may think it is just an ATM card! Does the merchant understand the benefits of encouraging his or her customers to use the PoS terminals?

When I was working with one of our clients a while back, I discovered that she actually invested the time and the energy to try and quantify the benefits of using the cards and the cost of cash payments.

They found that the cost of counting, moving, storing and generally managing cash is just about half of the value of that cash! As a merchant, if you haven’t realised that, it would be difficult for you to say, ‘I would much rather take electronic payment than take cash.’  So in the areas where we have seen that the merchants recognise those benefits, there has been huge growth.

What are the best ways to grow the usage of the debit card payment system in Nigeria?

We have got a lot of guys; the guys I like to call the big brain guys who are solving that same question in multiple countries. As I mentioned, what we tend to find is a lot of these similar issues are existing in a number of countries. But in some countries or markets, the extent to which this is a problem may be greater than in others.

So we have to look at things like education; education, education, education is number one! If I know the benefits, if I understand how to use my card, then it’s just a matter of saying, ‘ok, can I use it here or there?’

As a merchant, if I understand the benefits of accepting cards, then I would push for card payments. So education, education is the issue. You benefit from bringing more people into the electronic payment system, so more people will have cards and if you have more people who have got cards, and the cards are just sitting in their wallets or they are just using them for cash, then it is not really of significant benefit.

The bigger benefits come from ensuring that the people who do have cards understand how to use them. And as more people get cards, they realise these cards are not just ATM cards and they can use it for the purchases that they want to make in a convenient, transparent and secure manner.

 What were the benefits of the just ended campaign for Visa card users?

I think when you are encouraged to experience something in a somewhat different way, to go off on the beaten path of a tourist, you grow.  I was mentioning to somebody a little bit earlier that I was in Dubai and somebody took me to a small fish shop. You know, a little local fish shop; not in a shinny mall with bright lights and gold; not a largely paved place at the back of a Lexus; just a small shop on the side; those experiences are the ways you grow as an individual.

So as a campaign that encourages everybody to experience something that makes them realise that their Visa card is not just for drawing cash out of the ATM. It is not just about making payments but actually takes them in their day-to-day lives as individuals; that were the major benefit.

Also, on top of that, when you have got a situation where you are just making people happy. You saw those smiles on those guys’ faces; that’s a beautiful thing. Like you people in the media, these guys are now ambassadors for Visa.

Because these guys will talk about us, these guys will share with their friends and say things like, ‘you know what? This works for me!’ You go on social media where you take a picture in this little fish shop which half the people didn’t even know existed. Those are some of the major benefits.

With new entrants into the e-payment space in Nigeria, which is the best way to grow it; competition, collaboration or both?

If you don’t have competition, the growth you see is false growth. You have to have competition, but you do need some common standards. You do need to have a bit of an understanding. If I introduce something that is completely new, the chances of it taking off are increased if it is not very difficult for people to connect to it. So for certain things we need competition. I also need to understand that the boundaries between countries have collapsed!

So if we are looking at developing something for just Nigeria, we are really starting in a wrong place. One of our realisations is, it’s got to be easier to work with Visa. Our technology developers, technology partners, and financial institutions it just has to be easier to work with Visa.

So we are putting a lot of efforts into bringing down the barriers to make it much easier to work with Visa whilst maintaining the security, maintaining our system’s integrity. It is much easier to connect with and generate and create the payment systems of tomorrow. And that is a recognition that we have not just in Nigeria but globally.

What are your plans to continue growing debit usage and acceptance in Nigeria?

You know that there are really two ways in which you can grow usage. You either give more people cards or you ensure that the people who have cards are able to use them more. And I think if you look at the market generally, not just in terms of Visa, there are a lot of cards in Nigeria. But many of those cards are just sitting in people’s pockets; they are just sitting in their wallets and don’t get used.

What we have to do as an industry (and Visa will continue to lead that charge), is to find answers to questions like, ‘why is your card just sitting in your wallet and you don’t feel the need to use the convenience of the card?’ We have to look at and find solutions to the barriers to usage of the cards. Are there technology barriers? Are there reliability barriers? Are there barriers because people don’t just understand the benefits of using these cards?

So we have to look at those things and solve a lot of those problems because there are lots of cards here that are not really being used. That is huge growth opportunity.

In terms of card usage, are there surveys that Visa has carried out to know the level of usage?

Even though I don’t have up-to-date data to support it, the trend we have seen is, the rate of card usage in Nigeria is a lot lower than in similar markets. There are other countries in Africa and South America – other markets that have similar number of cards like Nigeria’s – but the cards are used more.

If you and I sat here 10 years ago, we won’t be talking about cards because there were no cards! It may well be that it is because this is new or that there is knowledge, information gap that needs to filled.

Bear in mind that if you and I sat here 10 years ago we would not be able to determine the right cards. But see what has happened with the internet; that wasn’t available 10 years ago. If you look at what is happening in the mobile phone space where you can use your mobile phone to pay for your Uber; that wasn’t available five years ago. The entire environment is moving and shifting. So we have to understand; how do we ensure that our consumers understand the convenience and remove the barriers to usage?

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

My view is that there is certainly space to increase the number and the volume of spend at the Point of Sales (PoS); no question about that. If you’ve got a store that has got a PoS terminal and it’s only used once or twice a day, the indication is that there is certainly space to grow.

Without having dug into it very deeply, I suspect that the ATM use is a function of a few things: Number one, people are used to cash, they understand cash. Number two, four or five years ago the ATMs really didn’t all work. But the banks have invested a lot to ensure that the ATMs always, always work.

We need to make sure that the view of the PoS is the same thing. You go to a store and you see the Point of Sales. There should never be a question in your mind as to whether it would work. If you get to that stage where there is no question in your mind as to whether it would work, that changes all you would do with it.

Let me give you an example: I travel a lot, I travel perhaps too much. But I spend a lot of time in the UK. When I’m in the UK, very rarely do I have more than 10 pounds cash in my wallet no matter what I do. I was in Dubai last week and I didn’t spend a penny of cash for the entire week while there. When I’m using my card, I know I’m using my card to make a payment.

When I’m in those environments, there is never a question in mind as to whether this thing will work. And because I have that confidence, it would always, always work. I go into a new country and I never had to use the ATM once.

One, there is acceptance in all the places where I wanted to make payments; and two, I was absolutely confident that it would always work. If we can get that kind of environment in Nigeria, then I think that is likely to change the game, change the picture; change the landscape in terms of how much usage we are getting out of the Point of Sales.

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

There’s continued recruitment; that is number one. We are moving into our permanent office; the building is being completed as we speak. And then from there, we would continue to see what our customers and financial institutions want and need. I mentioned earlier bringing down the barriers and helping our technical partners who are Nigerian companies so that they can offer their services anywhere, not just in Nigeria. For me, that is about long term investments.