Competition Opens up a Market - Intermarc MD

Adeyinka Adeyemi, managing director, Intermarc Consulting has said the influx of foreign e-payment companies into the country would open up the Nigerian electronic payment space as competition is bound to set in.
Adeyemi in a field session with journalists at the Card, ATM & Mobile Expo 2010 organised by the firm noted that there are a few companies manufacturing cards here in Nigeria and a few doing business in the electronic payment space.
He explained that as competition sets in, there would be a positive change in the way business is done in the e-payment space.
“We’ll see that quality of service will improve, cost will be reduced and at the end of the day, these would be of great benefits to people.
Speaking on the objective of the Card, ATM & Mobile Expo, Adeyemi said it is a way of giving flesh to the federal government’s policy on e-payment mandating every government agency, establishment, department and ministry to go electronic in their monetary transactions and to make Nigeria one of the top 20 countries, come year 2020.
“If you have an electronic payment system that is robust and that people can relate with, the economy begins to move because all loses in terms of money that filters away from the system as a result of manual transactions will be eliminated and government begins to save a lot more money, transactions takes less time to conduct, it’s more secure and the overall economy benefits,” he said. 
The Intermarc managing director while addressing fraud in the e-payment space said two things can be done on the physical side and on the technology side to minimize fraud in the system.
“On the physical side, checks should be put in place in terms of control and on the technology side, anti-fraud technologies as this makes everything transparent.”
“Fraud is not a Nigeria thing but a global phenomena because anywhere there is money, there is fraud; whether electronic or cash, even with cheques, adding that there are a lot of cloned cheques, people stealing cheque leaves, forging signatures and so on,” Adeyemi said.