By Amaka Ifeakandu
Lagos
In furtherance of the drive for pervasive usage of electronic payments in Nigeria, the management of the Central Bank of Nigeria has approved an industry wide incentives scheme and awareness compaign for electronic payments stakeholders and users. The circular to all banks and licensed payment service providers signed by the Director, Banking and Payment System Department, DipoFatokunsaid that the scheme is primarily focused to reward users of electronic payments in Nigeria and to further encourage greater adoption by all.
The incentive scheme will reward and appreciate usage across all channels with emphasis on channels electronic payments that promote financial inclusion. The Scheme has identified and will reward consumers, merchants and sales persons. The apex bank said that the incentive scheme and awareness campaign was designed as a white label campaign. In which all stakeholders are required to partner. The apex bank said that under Merchants the service charge would be reduced from the current 1.25 per cent to 0.75 per cent or a maximum of N1200 per transaction while the current sharing ratio among the various participants would be retained. It further said that free commission on turnover would be accelerated ahead of the dates on the guide to bank charges for merchants, adding that all the electronic inflows of into the accounts of the merchants would be exempted from calculation of the COT at the end of each month. For consumers, it said that point based reward system would be adopted to reward cardholders based on point grossed through frequency of card usage, stressing that Nigeria Interbank Settlement system (NIBSS) would implement the programme in conjunction with other service providers. It said that currently refund of cash based on card usage is being implemented by all banks. The CBN, however, said that the Merchants might leverage on the incentives scheme to offer promotional gift items to their customers, based on the usage of electronic payments for transactions. The circular further said that the salespersons would be encouraged to support electronic payments by having them enrolled on the tipping point scheme, through which they will earn points accrued over a period. It said that such points may be redeemed by the salespersons through various gift items or cash.
