By Babajide Komolafe

The value of electronic payment transactions through Point of Sale (PoS) terminals rose by 39 percent, year-on-year, to N297 billion in the first two months of the year.

Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) revealed this in its data for electronic payments from January to February 2018.

Analysis revealed that the value of PoS transactions rose by 39 percent to N296.96 in the first two months of the year, year-on-year, from N181.49 billion in the first two months of 2017.

Similarly, the volume of PoS transactions in January and February rose by 98 percent to 32.8 billion from 16.55 billion in same period of 2017.

However, month-on-month analysis however revealed that the value of PoS transactions dropped in January and February.

The value of transactions dropped by 9.5 percent to N152 million from N167.6 million in December 2017 and again   by 4.8 percent to N144 billion in February.

Volume of transactions also dropped in January, but rose slightly in February. In January it dropped by 5.6 percent to 16.1 billion from 17.06 billion in December, but rose by 16.7 percent to 16.7 billion in February.

While the sharp increase in year-on-year volume and value of transactions indicate increased acceptance and use of PoS for payment for goods and services, the month-on-month decline reflect seasonal effect on level of spendings across the country