Central Bank demands monthly reports on card payments from banks

The Central Bank of Nigeria yesterday directed all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to ensure that they submit comprehensive data on all issued cards as well as total number of active cards on a monthly basis to enable it monitor the progress on the ongoing card payment implementation project.

The apex bank in a August 22, 2011 circular Ref. No. BPS/DIR/CIR/01/009 signed by the acting director, Banking and Payment Systems Department, Gaius Emokpae, and posted on the CBN website yesterday, all banks were directed to ensure that their reports, which should take effect September 3, 2011, captured the total number of active accounts, cumulative cards issued, cumulative active cards, number of cards issued in the reporting month and number of cards activated.

The directive, the apex bank explained, is in furtherance of the Bankers Committee's agreement, which requires all banks in the country to drive the card issuance and create an enabling environment for the card policy implementation expected to kick start the operation ‘Cashless Lagos' planned for December this year.

Other details contained in the circular stated: "Please note, active accounts for this purpose, are accounts with at least one transaction in the past six months; while active cards are those that have been picked up and activated. Thus, the first report should be forwarded to us on or before September 3, 2011", it concluded.

During the Bankers Committee's meeting for the month of June, banks committed themselves to the card payment implementation drive aimed at reducing the cost of banking transactions as well as facilitating an improvement in the payment system through the deployment of innovative technologies at all levels of banking transactions nationwide.

CBN director of Banking Supervision, Samuel Oni, told reporters at the end of the meeting that part of the decisions that was taken at the Bankers' Committee was the commencement of the implementation of the operation ‘Cashless Lagos' in December 2012, which he said will entail aggressive deployment of automated teller machines (ATMs), Point of Sales (POS) terminals in various banks locations both on-site and off-site.

"We will also aggressively procure POS terminals that customers will use anytime they visit POS either in shopping malls, in the airlines, in the airports, in the company factories or where you have key distributors of various companies that will normally aid their transactions with cash. What we are trying to say here is that this has worked in several parts of the world.

"In fact in Africa, there are countries like Kenya, and Kampala in Uganda that when you go there and transactions are primarily using cards and we think that Nigeria should not be an exemption", Mr Oni added.

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