The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced that the automated teller machines’ transactions in 2016 suffered the highest decline in value, dropping from N1.39billion in 2015 to N474.45million.
The apex bank in its electronic fraud annual report for 2016, said, in terms of volume of transactions, the
ATM payment recorded a decline from 4.9 million transactions to 3.71 million.
This was followed by the “other” payment channel, which dropped from N305.2million to N30.8million in terms of value and from 1.63 million to 359,985 in terms of volume of transactions.
The product channels are the ATM, The Point-of-Sales and web, among others.
Analysis of the electronic fraud report showed that the POS payment channel also experienced a decline in terms of value dropping from N655.64million to N413.1million.
However, its volume of transactions rose during the period from 3.29 million to 3.65 million.
The volume of processed transactions in 2016 amounted to 278,744,529, while the value was over N64trillion.
“There was an increase of 71 percent in volume of transactions; there was also an increase of 31 per cent in the value of transactions compared to 2015.
There was a reduction in the total number of foreign transactions carried out in 2016 when compared to 2015.
“This reduction spanned across transaction values. It is quite clear that the exchange rates and the CBN regulation on foreign exchange affected the velocity of foreign transactions across product channels in 2016,” it stated.
The report noted that the value of foreign transactions also declined by 58 per cent, from N2.45billion in 2015 to N1.02billion in the comparative period of 2016. The report attributed the decline to exchange rate volatility as well as the CBN’s regulation on foreign exchange.
This, it added, affected the velocity of foreign transactions across product channels in 2016. The CBN has injected over $1.5billion into the foreign exchange market in the last two months in a bid to increase the value of the naira. But analysts have described the apex bank’s intervention as an artificial solution to the forex crisis in the country.
Director General, Lagos State Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Muda Yusuf, explained that an arrangement, which makes the CBN sole supplier of the forex to the economy is not sustainable and will eventually hurt the economy.
Yusuf said although, the recent series of intervention by the CBN in the forex market had brought some relief to the private sector, “we have seen a considerable improvement in the forex liquidity: the exchange rate depreciation has moderated; the anxiety in the economy had been tempered and hope of economic recovery has been rekindled.”
