Why Are Nigerians Besieging Banks?
Why are Nigerians besieging banks? The optics does not look good with the hype of digitization. But if you ask me for an answer, this is what I will tell you: successful debits but failed completed transactions. Yes, they have debited you but the recipient does not receive value.
This is my rule: never enter a restaurant without cash. Why? You can pay with a debit card, and the transaction will return “failed” or “invalid”. Wait for hours and check your bank account, you will notice that the transaction actually went through. Of course, going back to a bank to waste three hours for say N2,000 is stupidity. So, that one goes.
This remains a puzzle: I have never experienced that in the U.S. Possibly, U.S. banks give value to the recipient before debiting the initiator, making it impossible to debit without the recipient getting value. I do not know, but that is my thinking. It comes down to trust.
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Maybe the people besieging the banks wanted to be sure that their money is still there, after the prolonged lockdown.
As for failed transactions, I do feel that technologies struggle to function optimally here. Look at telco services, the 3G never achieved the optimal speed of 2G, then they announced 4G, so even the famed 5G will disappoint once it lands in Nigeria, just wait and see.
Even when you want to experience 24 hour power supply here, the transformer may decide to blow off, just to ensure that the cycle is broken; many things struggle here.
Maybe the weather is to be blamed...