StampDuty: PoS redundant as customers opt to pay cash

The Point of Sales (PoS) acquired by petrol stations and supermarkets have become mostly redundant as customers now opt to pay cash, avoiding the N50 Stamp Duty imposed by the financial authorities.

A number of petrol stations and super markets visited by Blueprint were seen receiving cash payments. On inquiry, operators of the PoS said, customers were beefed that extra money not planned for is been collected from their accounts.

Contrary to the pursuant of a cashless regime for the country, the reverse is fast becoming the case as a result of theStamp Duty introduced recently.

A number of super stores and petrol stations have the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) circular photocopied and pasted to show customers, it is not their fault.

Recall that Nigerians, especially bank customers are made to face several charges by financial institutions. These include N52.50 monthly card maintenance fee; N65 after third withdrawal in ATM interbank fees. Most times, banks remove the N65 at the first and subsequent withdrawals.

The banks still deduct N4 for SMS alerts, including unsolicited ones for birthday wishes, national and international day celebrations and operational updates. There is also N52 deduction in electronic transfer service. Banks also collect as much as N4,000 as fee for hardware token and N4 for one-time pin (OTP) SMS charge as well as N20 per page of a Statement of Account, among others.

While all these are imposed, then comes the N50 Stamp Duty Charge on Nigerians, who use the PoS terminals.

Blueprint gathered that the new N50 charge, which has been implemented by many petrol stations and supermarkets in Lagos, has become a burden and a source of worry to them and merchants as well.

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