By Babajide Komolafe

Nigeria needs a strategic agenda to consolidate recent gains and fast-track the country’s move towards an efficient electronic payment system.

This was the submission of experts who spoke at the 2nd annual conference of the Committee of e-Banking Industry Heads (CeBIH) held last week in Calabar, Cross Rivers State.

This strategic agenda, they said must incorporate: A programme of incentives for electronic payment usage;  A balancing of cooperation with competition, Massive education and enlightenment; Expansion of service offerings on electronic payment channels especially Point of Sale (PoS) terminals; A business approach  to electronic payment; and full adoption of electronic payment by the government.

Experts who spoke at the two day conference are: Daniel Monehin, Division President, Sub-Sahara Africa, Mastercard Worldwide; Mr. Emmanuel Obaigbona, Deputy Director, Banking and Payment System, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); And Mr. Ade Shonubi, Managing Director, Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS).

Others are Pedro Hipolito, General Manager, SIBS International, Libson, Portugal;   Martin Holloway, VP, Sales Africa & Middle East NEMEA, VeriFone U.K; Agada Apochi, Managing Director, Unified Payments System Limited; Amit Wohl, EMEA Channel Manager, Trusteer, USA; Sam Kolajo, Enterprise Logistics; Victor Ajua, Country Manager, DataGroup IT.

The focus of discussion at the CeBIH conference was “Developing a market structure that works: Challenges and Prospects for the Nigerian Payment System”.

Obaigbona and Shonubi in their presentations noted that while there are still a lot of challenges in the quest to move the country from cash to electronic payment, there have been significant achievements especially in the deployment of electronic payment channels like ATMs, Internet, PoS and electronic money transfer. They observed that the improvement made was the product of collaboration among stakeholders, and to  consolidate on this requires collaboration.

According to Shonubi, “Developing a Nigeria payments system that works, requires: Unbiased regulation and oversight over the financial system practitioners by the regulatory authorities; Collaboration between major stakeholders in the e-payment value chain”.

“CeBIH needs to get more involved and should set industry targets with NIBSS which they both should work towards on a recurrent basis”, he added.

Obaigbona also made a case for collaboration saying, “The cashless policy was primarily aimed at enthroning electronic payment. “And we are making progress but we need ideas from this group. We suppose to come together because CBN encourages collaboration.

We need to hear from you. You are the experts on electronic payment. It is from your own perspectives that a lot of things happen. You tell us your own views, we look at them, and we invite you to discuss, and we would be able to come up with something for the industry.”

In his welcome remarks, Chuma Ezirim, CeBIH Chairman, said that while  collaboration is needed to set standards and build infrastructure to reduce cost for the industry, there is however need to balance cooperation with competition. He said, “Centrally-agreed common features can sometimes hamper product and/or service differentiation and innovation at the individual service provider level. A key question is what factors the authorities and key stakeholders should consider in balancing cooperation and competition in retail payment systems”.

He noted that while it is the responsibilities of Central Banks to provide oversight and regulatory functions to deal with conflicts of interest and balance cooperation and competition in order to achieve optimal availability and affordability of payment instruments, the CBN however should not unduly interfere in the provision of electronic payment access services in the country, which is an area that gives banks the opportunity to compete for product/service differentiation and innovation.”

Daniel Monehin of Mastercard and  Martin Holloway in their presentations made suggestions on how to facilitate acceptance of electronic payment  channels especially PoS.

While Monehin called for a programme of incentives that will compel cardholders and merchants to accept PoS, Holloway on his part, said that banks need to be brave and change their approach to deployment of PoS to merchants.

“In my experience in markets like South Korea, what was used there was a dual approach. What I see mostly in Nigeria is a single approach”, Monehin observed.

“In Nigeria, we see the stick, we see the penalties, we see the charges, but we don’t see the carrots, like telling people, if you embrace electronic payment, here is the pat you will get on your back. The picture of merchants that keep PoS  under the table will be very uncommon if you have programmes in place that motivates that merchant to record a sizable portion of his revenue on that terminal.