Bank tellers and Internet banking channels might be losing significance as both channels respectively lost 5% of total transfer transactions, according to the 2018 Interbank Instant Payments Annual Report.
TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the annual report released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) to shed some light on the performance of Inter-bank Instant payments, shows that USSD has made the most gains with regards to channel acceptance.
While mobile apps still remains most preferred channel with 44% of total transactions, USSD is closely catching up as the channel has grown from 25% usage in 2017 to 35% in 2018, while the use of mobile apps has grown by just 1% when compared to 2017.
In Summary, 79% of total transfer transactions were carried out using a mobile phone/tablet.
“At the inception of interbank transfers, Bank Tellers were the most preferred channel for transfers, however, over the past few years, interbank transfers have mostly been carried out via the use of Mobile Apps.
“With the total number of Mobile Phone user hitting 146 Million as at January 2018, we expect the USSD to overtake the use of Mobile apps in the not too distant future,” a statement by NIBSS read.
According to the report, the younger demography continues to boost the adoption of the transfers as customers within the age bracket 25-34 years carried out 39% of all interbank transfers in 2018.
“However, we observed an increase in adoption among customers aged between 15-24 years. 16% of transactions were initiated by this cluster as compared to 12% in 2017.
“Holistically, 80% of transfer transactions in 2018 were initiated by customers between 15-44 years.
“It is worth noting that, according to the NCC, 56% of the total population of 186 million aged 16 years and above. With 12.7 million unique customers who initiated a transfer based on BVN, a market of 91.4 million, people are under-served.
“Lagos remains the hub for Instant payments yet again with 24% of total transactions initiated by its inhabitants.
“The FCT, Rivers and Ogun State came in joint second with 6% respectively of total transactions,” the statement further read.