The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said the country’s cash payment system is overripe for disruption urging Nigerians to embrace going cashless.
Noting that despite progress in creating robust payment system through several reforms targeted at growing the system, cash has remained a competition and is much overripe for disruption.
“Thus as a nation, we must embrace a cashless economy, encourage the provision of platforms to enable seamless transactions to boost business expansion where cash is efficiently disrupted.”
The Nigeria payment industry has continued to introduce initiatives geared towards creating convenient ways of making payments and extending electronic payment benefits to Nigerians even at the bottom of the pyramid where usage of cash has been predominant.
The apex bank along with the Bankers Committee, the Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) and other payment industry players have enhanced the Nigerian payment systems by continuously providing solutions to increase the resilience of infrastructure to encourage the usage of electronic payment methods across the nation.
With NIBSS providing efficient integration process for financial institutions to leverage APIs, NQR delivers instant value for P2B, P2P and B2B transactions with a more improved customer experience. This payment option has empowered bank customers who own smartphones to easily access information provided by merchants for the purpose of making payments.
Globally, research had shown a major shift to contactless payment options with a number of countries like China, India, Thailand, Ghana, Singapore, Malaysia pioneering solutions with Quick Response Code. To bridge the gap within our fast-evolving payment landscape, Nigeria has not been left out with the introduction of a National Quick Response Code (NQR), an initiative of the CBN and driven by NIBSS.
