Nigeria currently boasts of 70.18 million bank accounts, made up of 15.45 million current and 51.59 million savings accounts, according to statistics credited to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System.
.These figures were made available by the Electronic Payment Providers Association of Nigeria (EPPAN) at the E-Payment Media Academy 101 organised for technology journalists in Lagos on Thursday.
The figures provided were as they were as at July 2014.
According to the report, the total number of corporate accounts in Nigeria are 5.37 million while individuals account for 64.81million.
According to the report, there are just about 13, 770 ATMs, which as at July 2014 recorded 214.63 million transactions worth about N2 trillion. The number of active payment cards on the ATMs was said to be about 41.89 million.
The Deputy Director, Banking and Payment System Department, Jimoh Musa Itopa, who represented the Director of Payment Services at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dipo Fatokun, said that the number of Nigerians with bank accounts is still below 30 million, and most cases of fraud come mainly from overseas.
Itokpa spoke at the forum with the theme “The Role of Media in the Propagation of E-Payment Systems in Nigeria”, organized for IT reporters in Lagos on Thursday.
He said that it is incumbent on consumers to of protecting the payment cards against fraud rested mostly on the consumers, adding that the CBN had asked the banks to protect their various payment systems.
According to him, it is not only when customers knowingly or unknowingly divulge their PIN identities that their accounts’ security could be breached but “ but also when intending fraudsters have access to the 16 digits numbers on the face of the ATM cards; the expiry date and the CVV numbers which are the last three digits at the back of the cards.
“This information can be cloned by any hacker and could wreak huge havoc on the original owner of the account,” he stressed.
Itokpa added that CBN and the bankers committeewere working on so many modalities that would mitigate the vulnerabilities of consumers in the country.
On the paper titled “Understanding the Policy of E-Payment in Nigeria”, presented on behalf of Fatokun, Itopa said the process was to eliminate delays in the payment process; ensure online real time; minimize people’s interaction; and improve control, supervision and process efficiency.
He described payment system as the entire arrangements of instruments, procedures, regulations and laws governing institutions, interconnected networks of hardware and communications technology facilitating transfer of monetary value between transacting businesses.
To one of the facilitators from NIBSS, Osamede Odiase, the Nigeria’s e-payment sub-sector is gaining serious tractions, even from outside the country.
Odiase noted that NIBSS was working seriously to ensure that Nigerians’ experiences on e-payment platforms are excellent.
