First Bank Makes History, Achieves 100m Switching Transactions

Interswitch Transnational Africa’s leading integrated payment and transaction processing company has officially recognized First Bank Nigeria Ltd. as the first financial institution in the country to achieve a transaction volume of 100 million transactions in a month.

The record transaction volume, which was achieved in the month of December 2015, represents the total transactions processed by First Bank’s Front End Processor running on the Interswitch transaction switching platform which seamlessly links all financial institutions in Nigeria to facilitate better and quicker transactions across all platforms.

As one of Nigeria’s largest financial institutions with over 8 million customers, the achievement by First Bank is a pointer toward its desire to promote the cashless policy of the CBN initiative and boost economic growth via e-payments across Nigeria and the African continent.

Reacting to the development, Interswitch, Akeem Lawal, Divisional CEO, Switching and Processing commented, “It really says something about the strength and development of electronic transactions in Nigeria that a single banking partner can record 100 million transactions in a single month. When you add this figure to that of our other partners, then you can begin to have an idea of the sheer size and demand for electronic financial services in Nigeria.”

The milestone by First Bank is another marker of the scale of success recorded by Interswitch since its launch in 2002. It will be recalled that the company in 2014 was listed by Deloitte as the fastest growing tech company in Africa with a year-on-year growth rate of over 1500%.

Interswitch has also made considerable inroads into the East African market with the acquisition of Paynet Kenya alongside a strategic partnership with KCB Bank across several East African countries.