Cashless Policy Suffers Setback as Merchants Dump POS

• Cashless Policy Suffers Setback as Merchants Dump POS

Merchants have started dumping Point of Sale (PoS) for cash payments as customers refused to pay N50 stamp duty.

In September, the Central Bank of Nigeria directed all PoS owners to ensure that customers are charged N50 stamp duty on transaction value at N1,000 and above.

Mr. Kola Alade, a Fast Moving Consumer Goods retailer in Ogba, Lagos, said the new directive is the reason most customers now avoid PoS.

“Sometimes, I have to ask some of my sales representatives to accompany my customers to Automatic Teller Machines to collect cash because they have refused to use the PoS,” Alade said.

He called on the central bank to have a rethink as the new directive has started hurting cashless policy being pushed by the apex bank.

Mr. Philip Bassey, a grocery store manager at Ikeja, said the new directive has drastically reduced PoS payments and render terminals redundant.

According to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Scheme, the number of inactive PoS terminals rose from 43,320 in January 2019 to 131,201 in October 2019.

Speaking on falling PoS transactions, Mr Victor Olojo, the President, Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria, said merchants dumped the machine as it is no longer profitable to continue using without charging customers.

He said, “We have filling stations and big merchants who have actually dumped the PoS because customers have declined using it and in other cases, it is not profitable any more when they don’t charge customers; they have to bear the cost of the N50 stamp duty.

“To a large extent, the PoS is still a very important tool for agent banking and in most cases, the agents try to push the N50 stamp duty charge to the end users.”