Nigerians carried out electronic payment transactions valued at N704.04 trillion in 2020, according to the latest report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
This represents a 325 percent increase from N165.8 trillion recorded in 2019.
The NBS also noted that the volume of electronic payment transactions rose by 142 percent year on year to 7.16 billion in 2020 from 2.96 billion in 2019.
The increase appears to have been spurred by the COVID-19 lockdown that prevents physical interaction in business in the year under review.
The report stated “A total volume of 3,464,811,083 transactions valued at N356.47 trillion was recorded in the fourth quarter of last year (Q4’20) as data on Electronic Payment Channels in the Nigerian banking sector revealed.
“Online transfers dominated the volume of transactions recorded. 2,227,449,949 volume of online transfer transactions valued at N120.27 trillion were recorded in Q4’20.
“In terms of credit to the private sector, the total value of credit allocated by the banks stood at N20.37 trillion as of Q4’20.
“Oil & Gas and Manufacturing sectors got credit allocation of N3.93 trillion and N3.19 trillion to record the highest credit allocation as at the period under review.
“As of Q4’20, the total number of banks’ staff decreased by -0.90 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) from 95,888 in Q3 2020 to 95,026.”