ATM Transactions Hit 110m in November

The volume of transactions on electronic payment devices such as the Automated Teller Machines (ATM) and Point of Sale terminals (PoS) dropped to 110 million last month due to the migration from the magnetic stripe card to chip and pin otherwise M4 cards, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.
The figure achieved in November compared to 113 million recorded in the month of October.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, investigations revealed that Interswitch which controls presently some 90 percent of transactions in the e-payment industry processed 100 million transactions in the month under review while other players such as ValuCard and eTranzact accounted for 10million.
It was gathered that the number of live ATMs in the industry increased from 9,740 in October to 10,284 in November, while the number of deployed PoS drop from 11,483 in October to 11,321 in November.
Also, transaction volume increased from 14 million in October to 15 million in November.
Electronic payment system in the country is undergoing transformation occasioned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s directive to banks to migrate from the traditional magnetic stripe cards to Europay, MasterCard and Visa standard chip and Pin cards.
This migration which is expected to be completed this month will render all magnetic stripe cards ineffective by next year.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek however gathered that the system has been infiltrated by fraudsters who send emails to unsuspected ATM cardholders urging them to disclose their Personal Identification Number upon the claim that major switching companies are upgrading their systems.
Many ATM cardholders fell prey to the antics of these fraudsters, thereby necessitating the migration to chip and pin which has more security features that make it difficult for cards to be cloned and used by another person.