Ibrahim Olukotun
A survey to determine the level of POS adoption in line with the CBN Cashless policy in Lagos released recently has shown that most merchants with the Point of Sales, POS Terminals prefer cash to electronic payment.
The survey was commissioned by Nigeria Inter- Bank Settlement System, NIBSS to Financial Derivatives Company Ltd, a research firm.
According to the Survey, 99.3 percent of 3,562 merchants surveyed said cash is the most accepted means of payment. The reasons adduced according to the survey are; fears of fraud, PoS deployment was involuntary because Merchants never requested for them from banks and delays associated with access to funds after sales.
The study further reveals that PoS deployment is not PoS availability because some Merchants keep it under their lockers.
Meanwhile, 73.2 Percent of the merchants surveyed accepted card payments. While, 61.7 Percent of the respondents claimed they accepted cheques. Also 25.5 Percent accepted electronic fund transfers (EFT) for payment and 0.9 Percent accept other means of payment.
Speaking on the success rate of the scheme, Merchants who were surveyed held different views of the success. While 16.2 percent of the merchants indicated that the success rate of card payment was above 75 percent. A total of 24.4percent of merchants indicated that the success rate of cards is less than 25percent. 29.8 percent of merchants believe the success rate to be between 25 percent and 55 percent and 29.6 Percent of merchants claimed that success rate was between 55 percent and 75Percent.
The study therefore recommends ways of ensuring that deployment of PoS terminals are efficiently used by merchants. The recommendations include: Periodic checks should be carried out by the Payments Terminal Service Providers (PTSPs) in order to ascertain the condition of the PoS Terminals and get feedback about the functionality of PoS Terminals, Also the study suggests that the PTSPs’ technician contact number should be made available to merchants, so that they can receive quick and first hand technical assistance when they need it.
Others are that the role of the NIBSS certification laboratory to certify and approve PoS Terminal models should be popularised and communicated to merchants to boost
