Nigeria rides innovation to boost mobile payments growth

Nigeria is riding a wave of innovation that is leading to huge growth in its mobile payments market. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced recently that electronic payment in the country was on the meteoric rise.

According to the apex bank, a total of N34 trillion worth of electronic payment transactions were made in 2014 representing about 150 percent rise in the figures recorded in 2012.

The trend is gaining momentum as new innovative firms are emerging and partnering with banks to deliver mobile financial solutions to the Nigerian market.

The latest entrant is Unified Payments Services Limited which has introduced PayAttitude, the first-ever interoperable multi-bank and mobile network-independent contactless solution for mobile commerce and banking to the Nigerian market.

“PayAttitude guarantees subscribers the confidence and comfort of successful contactless payment for goods and services at merchant locations at all times notwithstanding the problems or challenges of telecommunication or the unavailability of network of the merchant’s bank, acquirer or the subscriber’s bank or issuer,” Agada Apochi, managing director and chief executive officer, Unified Payments, said at the formal launch in Lagos.

“It is also compatible with all mobile phones and all the mobile networks, making it ideally suited to the peculiar demands of the Nigerian mobile transactions landscape.”

It is predicted that internet usage on mobile phones would increase 20-fold in the next five years in Africa, which is double the rate of growth in the rest of the world.

Nigerian consumers’ preferences, such as paying retailers via mobile phone rather than cash and an increasing appetite for well-priced mobile devices, are being fuelled by a rapidly growing middle class.

Nigeria’s economy, the continent’s biggest, may expand by 4.8 percent this year higher than the 4 percent average growth expected in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA), according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates.

Consumption in Nigeria could increase to $1.4 trillion a year by 2030, from its present level of $388 billion a year, an average annual increase of 8 percent, according to a report released last July by research firm, McKinsey Global Institute.

The McKinsey report forecasts that 35 million Nigerian households will be earning more than $7500 a year by 2030, greatly expanding the middle-income bracket.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) data also show that the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) transactions rose by 423 percent to N19.9 trillion from N3.8 trillion in 2012, while internet and mobile payment transactions rose by 108 percent and 8,400 percent, respectively.

While internet transactions rose to N65.6 billion from N31.5 billion, mobile payment transactions rose to N296.9 billion from N3.5 billion.

Two variants of PayAttitude – the PayAttitude Debit and the PayAttitude Prepaid and Mobile – were showcased at the launch with particular emphasis on the convenient, safe and secure transactions they guarantee for subscribers.
Titilayo Olubiyi, country manager, PayAttitude, said: “The critical difference between these two is that you don’t need to have a bank account to purchase the PayAttitude Prepaid and Mobile, but once purchased, it gives you a bank account. The great thing about both variants is that they deliver a 100% success rate on all transactions, as long as the subscriber’s electronic purse is funded.