Nigeria’s apex financial institution has directed that banks and cost service suppliers are required to simply accept all transactions from any card issued by any Nigerian financial institution.
In a round issued Tuesday on the Interoperability and Interconnectivity of the Funds System Infrastructure in Nigeria, the central financial institution gave the directive based mostly on the provisions of the rules on operations of electrical cost channels issued in 2020.
Based on the guidelines, all licensed cost acceptance gadgets, together with all POS terminals deployed in Nigeria are required to simply accept all transactions arising from any card issued by any Nigerian financial institution.
The directive to realize interoperability between banks is alleged to be in response to complaints that a variety of the acceptance gadgets deployed by banks discriminate between cost playing cards.
ATM money withdrawals limits
In associated information, the nation’s central financial institution has capped the every day withdrawal restrict from computerized teller machines (ATMs) to ₦20,000 Naira ($45), an enormous step down from the earlier restrict of ₦150,000 Naira ($337) per day.
Weekly money withdrawals from banks had been additionally restricted to ₦100,000 Naira for people and ₦500,000 Naira for companies, whereas any quantity above that restrict will entice a charge of 5% and 10%, respectively, according to the central financial institution.
The apex financial institution says the transfer is to cut back the quantity of bodily money (cash and notes) circulating within the financial system and encourage extra electronic-based transactions (funds for items, providers, transfers, and so on.)
“Clients must be inspired to make use of different channels — Web banking, cell banking apps, USSD, playing cards, POS, eNaira to conduct their banking transactions,” the central financial institution acknowledged in a round.
Earlier in October, the apex financial institution issued draft guidelines for contactless payments in Nigeria to make sure that banks, different monetary establishments, and funds service suppliers implement acceptable danger administration processes and measures.
There are considerations that these new guidelines, which take impact on January 9, 2023, will severely restrict the usage of money, disrupting the operations of many MSMEs within the nation.
Nevertheless, it may be a daring step towards pushing Nigerians to embrace digital cashless transactions over money funds, permitting retailers and retail companies to faucet into the rising pattern of crypto funds all over the world.
