The Nation Newspaper

Tag: PoS

  • Kaduna, Skye Bank partner on IGR

    Kaduna, Skye Bank partner on IGR

    Kaduna State Government and Skye Bank Plc have partnered on increasing the state’s internally generated revenue to accelerate and widen the pace of development in the state.

    Kaduna State Governor, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, disclosed this in Kaduna, while launching Point of Sales (POS) Terminal for the revenue collection scheme of the state, powered by Skye Bank Plc.

    He said the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state and the dwindling federal allocation were not enough to develop Kaduna.

    According to him, his government has a huge budget that was expected to be financed by the IGR, but noted that the internally generated revenue has been stagnant at about N1billion per month, for the past five years, hence, the need to develop new and accountable means of revenue collection.

    “It is a against this background that we have introduced POS to check revenue leakages and other challenges associated with tax collection,” the governor said.

     

  • Bank seeks improved PoS use

    There is a need to educate stakeholders and consumers  on Point of Sales (PoS) so they can benefit from the cash-less policy, Keystone Bank’s ManagingDirector/Chief Executive, Mr. Philip Ikeazor, has said.

    In his assessment of the cash-less policy at a media parley in Lagos, Ikeazor noted that given what happened to the economy prior to the cash-less policy, the country has gianed tremendously.

    The only area that financial services providers should do more is in the education on PoS uptake, he said.

    Ikeazor noted that it is only in the PoS that the market is slow in understanding the cash-less policy.

    He said: “I don’t have the statistics here. But if you see the volume of cash that goes through Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and the volume of cash that goes through Internet transfer alone, it shows that banks have improved in the country in terms of efficiency of transfers and cost reduction.

    “We should understand that before the advent of Internet banking and the advent of using ATM cards, we carried around huge cash with the inefficiency that comes with it.  But, today, that story is different. All that our customers require from us is to ensure that our channels work.

    “Banks have done very well in terms of Internet transfer, so have we (at Keystone Bank).  Banks have also done very well in terms of providing ATMs. The only place that the cash-less policy requires education is the uptake of PoS machines.”

    Ikeazor, however, noted that Nigeria still has a long way to go in the execution of the cash-less policy when compared with her counterparts abroad.

    He said: “We have not reached anywhere in terms of what we have abroad. If we can get to that level, then we can get to the stage where PoS machines that can be used to send details and the money goes straight into his account.”

  • Enterprise Bank enhances e-payment

    Enterprise Bank enhances e-payment

    Enterprise Bank Limited has assured its customers of additional convenience as they make use of the dual purpose MasterCard Prepaid Card. The card, it said in a statement, is used locally and internationally.

    It described the card as a multi-purpose chip and pin debit card that can be pre-funded with cash. The card can then be used to effect cashless payments (like a bank debit card) on the Internet, Point of Sale (POS) terminals and cash from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).

    It said that one of the unique benefits of the Enterprise Bank Mastercard Prepaid, which is available to both customers and non-customers of the bank, is that it can be pre-funded in Naira or USD denominations. It is also ideal for students, corporate accounts (expense cards, estacode, and corporate travel) and travel cards, among others.

    The card, the bank added, also eliminates the burden of carrying large sums of money around, which otherwise is loadable on the prepaid card. With the product, the statement further stated that holders of the Mastercard Prepaid do not need to carry huge amounts in foreign currencies for foreign trips because money loaded in the card is already available, secure, safe and can be used anywhere in the world.

    The bank said that the process of acquiring the card is also simple.

     

    Customers can collect e-Business Application forms from any branch of Enterprise Bank nationwide and submit completed ones with required documents. Once this is perfected, the individual will collect the card on the spot and in addition, receive a welcome letter and a user manual, which guides effective usage of the card.

     

  • PoS transactions hit N34b

    The Shared Services Project (SSP) initiated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in collaboration with the Bankers Committee two years ago, has pushed the value of Point of Sale (PoS) transactions to N34 billion in 1.7 million deals, The Nation has learnt.

    The CBN in a statement, said the implementation of the Cash-less Policy, under the payments transformation programme was the dominant activity in the SSP.

    The CBN has also issued PoS guidelines with 113,206 units deployed and connected to the Central Terminal Management System (CTMS).

    The banking watchdog also created the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF) to manage e-fraud attempts and limit losses.

    It said the SSP was meant to reduce the operating cost of Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), promote financial inclusion, facilitate integration of financial services into the economy and encourage banks to outsource non-core functions.

    “The principle was to get banks to share services and thereby enjoy economy of scale in the belief that the attendant reduction in their operational cost would ultimately be passed on to their customers, through lower costs and increased efficiency in service delivery,” it said.

    It added that the target was to reduce the industry–cost –to-serve by at least 30 per cent through effective cash management, retail payments transformation, Information Technology Infrastructure and Services, IT standards definition and back office operations were being implemented.

     

  • CBN mulls biometric authentication of bank customers

    CBN mulls biometric authentication of bank customers

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it will introduce Biometric authentication of bank customers in 2015 using Point Of Sale (POS) and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).

    The introduction of biometric authentication is to address the safety of customers’ funds and avoid losses through compromise of Personal Identification Numbers (PIN).

    This disclosure was made by the CBN governor Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi at the stakeholders sensitisation on the cashless Nigeria programme for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    Sanusi said: “Biometric authentication for POS and ATMs to address safety of customers’ funds and avoid losses through compromise of PIN is being considered and to be implemented by 2015.”

    Corroborating Sanusi, Chidi Onwealu who represented Eme Eleonu, Head, Shared Services, of the CBN said the financial industry cannot continue to wait forever as they will apply biometric authentication of bank customers.

    Onwealu said: “We have started a financial institutions biometric project. Right now we are capturing. The project has just started and very soon we’ll start capturing finger prints of all customers in the financial system.”

    This effort he said, will serve “as a first base to start enabling biometric options and by 2015 we expect that the illiterate trader in Onitsha and the illiterate trader in Kano would not have to come to your bank and you see his signature as irregular because those are the kind of things that stop them from opening accounts.”

    He berated banks for giving their customers cumbersome forms to fill. “They are not comfortable with that so they’ll rather have their money under their beds but as soon as we start applying biometric options, all they need is their finger prints to access their funds and so on.”

    The CBN governor represented by John Chukwudifu, the FCT branch controller, said the apex bank has taken great steps to gain the confidence of ATM consumers and as such has been able to reduce fraud committed with electronic cards by 90 per cent.

    To gain ATM users confidence, the CBN, Sanusi said, had to enforce migration from Magstripe type of debit card to chip and pin (EMV compliance) type of debit card.

    As a result of this effort, statistics he said, “shows that this effort has reduced the fraud incidences by 90 per cent. Many customers are now embracing the use of electronic (ATM and POS) channels in their transaction because of near impossible efforts of would-be fraudsters in being able to clone debit cards to perpetrate fraud as it was the case during the pre-migration era.”

    On the introduction of cashless programme in some states and cities in the country, Sanusi said, “there would be prevalent use of debit cards to perform transactions on ATM, POS and Internet banking, and these transactions would have to pass through public infrastructure which are prone to cyber threats (a source of vulnerability) as being experienced in developed economies.”

    He said “cases of debit and credit cards cloning are vulnerable areas that need urgent attention for the country to reap the benefits of cashless society.”

    Another challenge to the cashless programme of the CBN, Sanusi lamented, will be “displacing cash as the preferred means of payment.”

    Nigerians are so attached to using cash that “the cost of cash to Nigeria’s financial system is high and increasing, in fact, direct cost of cash is estimated to reach N192 billion in 2012″ Sanusi said.

  • Skye Bank to deploy more PoS outside Lagos

    Skye Bank to deploy more PoS outside Lagos

    Skye Bank Plc has concluded plans to deploy 8,000 Point-of-Sale (PoS) terminals in states covered by the second phase of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN’s) cash-less policy. This is in addition to 7,000 PoS already deployed in Lagos bringing the total number to 15,000.

    The CBN had announced that by July, the cash-less policy would be extended to Ogun, Anambra, Rivers, Abia states and the Federal Capital Territory after a successful pilot test in Lagos State.

    In a statement, the Group Head, e-Channels, Skye Bank Plc, Mrs Chuks Iku, said to ensure the success of the exercise, branches of the bank in Kano and the FCT have been trained and had consequently started customer education in relation to how PoS could be used, providing product knowledge and creating awareness about the policy and other payment channels. He said the awareness exercise would start in the other states ahead of the roll out.

    He said the bank’s staff in the states, which would be covered under the second phase, are undergoing training to ensure that they treat customers’ issues proactively and professionally to make the exercise a success.

    He listed some benefits of the new cash-less policy to include safety of transactions, convenient payment arrangement, security and flexibility, saying it would boost trade and commerce. Iku urged members of the public in those states not to resist the cash-less policy but embrace it as its benefits are numerous. According to him, carrying cash has become very dangerous and unsafe.

     

  • Skye Bank targets 15,000 PoS

    Skye Bank Plc has concluded plans to deploy 8,000 Point of Sale (PoS) terminals in states covered by the second phase of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) cashless policy. This is in addition to 7,000 PoS already deployed in Lagos being the total figure to 15,000.

    The CBN recently announced that by July, the cash-less policy would be extended to Ogun, Anambra, Rivers, Abia states and the Federal Capital Territory after a successful pilot test in Lagos State.

    In a statement, Group Head, e-Channels, Skye Bank Plc, Mr Chuks Iku, said that to ensure the success of the exercise, branches of the bank in Kano and Abuja have been trained and had consequently commenced customer education in relation to how PoS could be used, providing product knowledge and creating awareness about the policy and other payment channels. He said the awareness exercise would commence in the other states ahead of the roll out.