Nigeria’s E-transactions Hit N1.07 quadrillion in 2024

Electronic payment transactions in Nigeria rose to N1.07 quadrillion in 2024, reaching an all-time high and the first time to hit the quadrillion mark, according to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System.

The data released by NIBSS showed that the value recorded on the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) represents a 79.6% increase over the N600 trillion recorded in 2023.

While the e-payment data shows a steady increase throughout the 12 months of the year, the highest value was recorded in December.

Being a festive period with lots of spending activities, Nigerians spent a total of N115.1 trillion over electronic channels in December 2024.

This came as the all-time high monthly record on the NIBSS electronic payment platform.

The volume of transactions processed by NIBSS for the year also jumped from 9.7 billion in 2023 to 11.2 billion in 2024.

This represents a 15.5% increase in the volume of electronic transactions year on year.

Industry analysts believe that the surge in e-payment transactions can be linked to the recent cash crunch experience and the cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) limiting the amount of cash that can be withdrawn daily.

The NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP) is an account-number-based, online real-time Inter-Bank payment solution developed in the year 2011 by NIBSS.

It is the Nigerian financial industry’s preferred funds transfer platform that guarantees instant value to the beneficiary.

Aside from the cash scarcity experienced in March 2023, the revised cashless policy implemented by the CBN which further limits the amount of cash that can be withdrawn from banks daily, has also been pushing e-payment growth.