Amaka Obiefuna

The Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlements System Plc NIBSS handled 285 million POS transactions in 2018 and is targetng to increase transactions in 2019 to 600 million.

The system has also commenced upgrading of infrastructures to bring about more efficiency inorder to achieve that.

The Acting Managing Director of the organization, Mr Niyi Ajao told the media in Lagos yesterday that  infrastructure has been scaled up such that the system utilization is lower than 40 per cent to prepare for expected higher volumes in the next few years.

[3/20, 13:14] Winifred Office: He added that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has also waded in on the infrastructure matter with active engagements of stakeholders and timelines to achieve same.

“In 2018, we had 285 million POS transactions and that was the highest ever recorded in the country, We are expecting that the figure will double in 2019 because we had half of 2018’s figure in 2017 and that was why we embarked on an upgrade of our systems.” he said.

He explained that during the course of trying to upgrade capacity, a system glitch occurred and unfortunately, other players in value chain had issues around that period and that compounded the problem.

Furthermore he said,  “We are aware of all the troubles customers are experiencing, and we are working hard to correct the problems, steps are being taken to enhance the capacity to accommodate the growing transactions in the system especially the delayed in reversal.

We started noticing the issues around December. The failure rate which was previously at 13 per cent climbed to around 16 per cent. Effective from March 22, POS transaction time-out period would be increased to 45 seconds from the present 15 seconds to reduce the failure rate.

“Banks have also agreed to dedicate a particular period of the day to treating reversal complaints to clear the backlog.

He also  assured that complaints of Nigerians have been  heard and promise  to resolve it within few days.