Virtually all commercial banks in Nigeria have signed on MasterCard, as part of financial sector’s drive towards secured and seamless e-payment systems in Nigeria.
Speaking at a public forum in Lagos recently, Omokehinde Ojomuyide, vice president & area business head for West Africa, MasterCard, expressed her delight that the commercial banks in Nigeria are not lagging behind in the pursuit of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s) cashless economy policy.
She announced, then, that Sterling Bank was the newest to sign on to issue MasterCard secured cards to their customers.
Although, Standard Chartered Bank has signed on, she stated that the bank will soon commence issuing, and on the final phase of deploying the MasterCard system on their ATM first.
According to her, other commercial banks in the country are already in partnership with MasterCard.
Commenting, specifically on cashless economy initiative, Ojomuyide, observed that Point of Sales (PoS) terminals cannot be aligned with e-payment optimal points as they are ‘quasi-cash’ channels.
She added that internet banking should be encouraged to help lift the ecommerce, e-banking and other online payment channels.
The VP however, lauded CBN’s decision earlier in the year to reduce merchant fees to PoS from N1.2 to N0.75, although banks are lamenting on the high cost of operating the business.
MasterCard was first issued in 2005 in Nigeria and the first in West Africa.
Since then the Company has developed several projects to drive cashless policy and lost importantly the financial inclusion.