Electronic payment transactions hit N356.47 trillion in Q4 — NBS

A total volume of 3,464,811,083 transactions worth N356.47 trillion was recorded on electronic payment channels in the fourth quarter of 2020 (Q4 2020), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has stated.

Also, banking sector’s non-performing loan portfolio increased by 15.69 per cent to N1.23 trillion with gross loans of about N20.48 trillion in Q4 compared to N1.17 trillion and gross loans of N19.46 trillion in Q3.

According to the ‘Selected Banking Sector Data: Sectorial Breakdown of Credit, e-Payment Channels and Staff Strength (Q4 2020)’ report, posted on the NBS website, online transfers dominated the volume of transactions with over 2.23 billion deals valued at N120.27 trillion in the review period.

Payment transactions through the use of cheques stood at N4.20 trillion, indicating 10.28 per cent increase over Q3 while transactions, while using Automated Teller Machine (ATM) amounted to N4.54 trillion.

Point of Sale (PoS) transactions amounted to N1.52 trillion or a 25.49 per cent increase over the preceding quarter.

Also, National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) transfers stood at N96.08 trillion while Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) transfer was valued at N112.99 trillion as well as the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) transfers of N1.63 trillion in the review period.

According to the NBS, mobile apps transfers (not mobile money), amounted to N9.91 trillion while direct debits stood at N500 billion as well as transactions by Mobile Money Operators (MMOs), which stood at N4.82 trillion.

However, banking industry credit to the private sector stood at N20.37 trillion, representing a quarterly growth of 2.25 per cent.

Oil and gas and the manufacturing sectors got credit allocation of N3.93 trillion and N3.19 trillion respectively to record the highest credit beneficiaries for the period.

Also, credit to power and energy stood at N443.37 billion while mines and quarrying received N11.87 billion.

The report stated that the total number of banks’ staff decreased by -0.90 per cent quarter-on-quarter to 95,026 from 95,888 in Q3 2020.

Total staff strength in deposit money banks (DMBs) stood at 95,026 as at Q4 from 95,888 staff in the preceding quarter