Retail Payment Systems
In the OIC Member Countries
73
2. ValuCard (Visa). ValuCard provides domestic and international issuing and acquiring
processing services for Visa. Historically, it functioned as exclusive PoS acquirer for Visa,
but that has changed by recent regulation that liberalised the market. All 21 banks in
Nigeria currently have connectivity to ValuCard.
3. eTranzact (Genesis). Mobile banking and payment services to member banks and
institutions operate on the eTranzact platform. They have operations in Nigeria, Ghana,
Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, UK and South Africa. All 21 banks in Nigeria and major banks in
Ghana currently have connectivity to eTranzact. Also, all MNO’s in Nigeria, Ghana and
South Africa connect to eTranzact for airtime top-up via the mobile phones of subscribers.
‘Cashless Lagos’ Initiative
In a major push to encourage e-payments and other alternatives to cash, the CBN commenced
a ‘Cashless Lagos’ policy in Lagos State as part of a wider shared services programme that
seeks to achieve a 30% reduction in cost of banking services. Other objectives include
increasing access, convenience and service levels across the industry; and integrating financial
services into the economy.
The CBN estimated the direct cost of cash to the financial system as NGN114bn
($718.75million) as at 2009 and projected the figure to rise to NGN192bn ($1.2bn) in 2012.
Cash-in-transit, cash processing and vault management costs make up 24%, 67% and 9%
respectively of the total direct cost of cash. CBN data also indicates that pre-Cashless Lagos,
cash constituted 85% of commercial payments in Nigeria. Apart from the direct cost, other
costs include robberies and cash-related crimes, corruption and money laundering, non-
financial sector costs of cash processing by all entities across the value chain, government
revenue leakages, and inefficient treasury management. The CBN has recently announced that
the cashless policy will be extended to Rivers, Kano, Anambra, Abia and Ogun States of Nigeria,
and Abuja in July 2013.
Recent Developments
Nigeria has also formally launched a national ID that will also function as a prepaid payment
card provided by MasterCard. They require all Nigerians to have the card by 2019 if they want
to vote. This initiatives is conducted by the Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC)
and they began registering names since the end of 2014.
In 2014, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) also announced incentives to encourage e-
payments by rewarding three categories of users (consumers, merchants, and sales persons).