NIBSS ( Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc) has good data which helps us to make sense of digital payment growth (not just online). In Nigeria, we have 3 main card types: Verve, Visa and Mastercard. Most times, you need the card to do ATM, online payment, etc. So, most of the payment channels are connected to cards with one of the three logos.
This plot gives you the average in the world (excluding China). Yes, Visa and Mastercard are both growing at an average of 11% yearly. Alipay which is much younger than Visa and Mastercard does far better; Visa was founded in 1958, Mastercard in 1966, and Alipay in 2004. Alipay which mainly serves China processed $18 trillion worth of transactions in 2019; Visa and Mastercard combined for $16 trillion.
For Nigeria, including Verve, it is very safe to write that digital payment is growing at least 4x the Visa and Mastercard global average, bringing it to at least 40%. This is possible as Nigeria is still at the infancy phase of our payment digitization process.
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This represents a 59 per cent increase in the volume of transactions on the three platforms, compared with 117.84 million recorded in 2019.
Further analysis showed that the value of the PoS transactions grew by 70 per cent from N217.46bn in March 2019 to N368.86bn in March this year.
The volume of the PoS deals also increased by 75 per cent to 52.25 million in March compared with 29.82 million transactions recorded in the corresponding period in 2019.
The banking industry data indicated that NIP deals had a 28 per cent improvement in terms of the value of transaction when compared to the same period in 2019, when NIP deals amounted to N8.58tn.
The volume of NIP deals also increased by 54 per cent to 135.3 million in March 2020, compared with 87.94 million transactions recorded in the corresponding month in 2019.
If you look at the Alipay leapfrogging, Nigeria and Africa could be a better frog. You must digitize your operations because no matter what is happening today, tomorrow belongs to digital!
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