Nigeria records N19.33trn e-payment transactions in Q3
A total volume of 213,693,964 transactions valued at N19.33 trillion was recorded in the third quarter (Q3) of 2017 as data on Electronic Payment Channels in the Nigeria Banking Sector revealed.
A report by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Wednesday revealed that Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) Instant Payment (NIP) transactions dominated the volume of transactions recorded.
It noted that 97,530,856 volume of NIP transactions valued at N13,963 billion were recorded during the quarter under review.
“In terms of credit to private sector, a total of N15.83 trillion worth of credit was allocated by the banks in Q3 2017.”
On credit allocation by the banking system, Oil & Gas and Manufacturing sectors got credit allocation of N3.54 trillion and N2.27 trillion respectively to record the highest credit allocation in the period under review.
Agriculture sector got a total credit allocation of N491,496 billion or 3.11 percent of total.
In the industrial sector, Mining and Quarrying got N11.761 billion or 0.07 percent; manufacturing- N2.267 trillion or 14.33 percent; and Power and Energy – N459,248 billion or 22.38 percent
In services, Construction got credit facilities amounting to N653,606 billion; Trade/General Commerce accessed N954,231.99 or 6.03 percent debts; Government- N1,369.93 or 8.66 percent; Real estate- N798,390.74 or 5.05 percent; Finance, Insurance and Capital Market- N916,848.46 or 5.79 percent while Education got N77,185.83 or 0.49 percent.
In terms of the types of manners in which banking transactions were conducted, 2,831,252 cheques were issued for N1,309 trillion during the quarter.
In addition, customers used automated teller machines (ATMs) 62,305,387 times for transactions worth N514 billion although only figures for July were available for the quarter.
For point of sales (POS) machines, 39,310,184 transactions were recorded at a total value of N365 billion.
The statistical office also reported that 2,058,835 web transactions were carried out valuing N514 billion in addition to 3,895,102 mobile money payments worth N86 billion.
While reporting on deposits, NBS noted that the private sector made total demand deposits of N5,467 trillion in July, N5.423 trillion in August and N5.374 trillion in September.
An analysis of staffing during the period revealed that banks recruited more staff than in the first six months of the year.
By the end of September, “total number of banks’ staff increased by 9.16 percent from 75,607 in Q2 2017 to 82,531.6.”
There was a 22.36 percent increase in the number of staff occupying the executive cadre by the end of Q3 with the number dropping from 174 in Q1 to 161 in Q2 but growing to 187 in Q3.
There were 20,483 senior staff by the end of March 2017, which fell to 19,826 by mid-year but increased to 20,420
In the junior staff cadre, there were 36,202 employees in Q1 but this fell to 33,783 in Q2 but rose to 35,191 by Q3.
NBS also tabulated the number of contract staff in the sector to be 20,237 in Q1, 21,837 in Q2 and 26,723 in Q3.
Altogether, the banking sector had a total number of 82,531 workers by the end of September, 2017 which is equivalent to an 8.16 percent growth over the figure of 75,607 as at end of June.
