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Tag: transactions

  • FRCN investigates Stanbic IBTC over unapproved transactions

    FRCN investigates Stanbic IBTC over unapproved transactions

    The Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) has said it is investigating Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc for allegedly engaging in unapproved transactions with its foreign technical partners in the last four years.

    Its Executive Secretary/CEO, Jim Obazee, who spoke yesterday in Abuja during a meeting with the Director-General, National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Dan-Azumi Ibrahim, said the Council was responding to a petition written by shareholders of the bank “drawing the attention of regulatory authorities to some unapproved transactions conducted by the bank with its foreign technical partners. The petition from stakeholders, is on issues relating to the way they have been accruing some monies in their account.”

    The bone of contention however is whether Stanbic IBTC properly disclosed these accruals into its account which is what the FRCN is investigating.

    The accruals he said, “must be disclosed properly and they (Stanbic IBTC) require NOTAP approvals before they can make those payments. Now the person petitioning is saying that there is no need making those accruals because IBTC has not being able to secure NOTAP approval.”

    Obazee maintained that “the petition kept coming and then we invited Stanbic IBTC to hear their side of the matter. And having listened to their side of the story, we believe that the petitioners have a good case.”

    In line with its investigation, the FRCN chief said the Council will be meeting with regulatory agencies, such as the “NOTAP which will give the approval, Central Bank of Nigeria as regulator and Security and Exchange Commission because they (Stanbic IBTC) are asking for general mandate for the treatment of third party transactions which we were against because that will not be in line with related party transactions accounting standards.”

    Efforts to reach the Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications at Stanbic IBTC Bank, Mrs. Nkiru Olumide-Ojo were unsucessful as her phone was switched off. However, a source within the bank, who asked not to be named, said the lender cannot comment because the case is in court.

  • Ambode approves treasury single account for Lagos’ transactions

    Ambode approves treasury single account for Lagos’ transactions

    Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has approved the operation of a single account in the state effective from September 1.

    The development, it was learnt, was part of efforts to efficiently improve on the processes of revenue generation and collection as well as ensure proper accountability and transparency in all government accrued revenues.

    A statement by the Permanent Secretary/Accountant General, Mrs. Abimbola Umar, said the government took the decision to address the challenges previously faced with the operation of the multiple account system.

    Ambode said the operation of a Treasury Single Account (TSA), aside providing transparency and accountability, would also encourage tax payers to request for a single account before making their payments.

    Mrs. Umar added that the development was in line with the objective of the move by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that all government revenue accrues to one consolidated account.

    “All the affected revenue collecting banks have been mandated to immediately close all the existing multiple revenue accounts domiciled in their banks to give room for a single revenue accounting system in line with the Accountability and Transparency Policy of the current administration.

    “With this development, it is expected that all parastatals, local governments and establishments will commence the operation of the TSA on September 1, 2015,” the governor was quoted as saying in the statement.

  • ATA: Cellulant’s e-wallet processes 70m transactions

    ATA: Cellulant’s e-wallet processes 70m transactions

    The e-wallet technology deployed by Cellulant Nigeria Limited to aid the Federal Government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) in the past three years has processed more than 70 million transactions and has been used to deliver more than 1.3 million metric tonnes of fertiliser and improved seeds.

    The firm that has been at the heart of government’s agricultural transformation programmes has also been commended for the significant roles it is playing in the Federal Government’s ATA.

    In recent times, Cellulant was recognised as Agroinnovator of the Year, at the Agroinnovate Conference, while the Chief Executive Officer, Cellulant Nigeria, Mr. BolajiAkinboro, received the Outstanding Contributor to the Agricultural Transformation Agenda award at the recently concluded Agroivest 2015.

    The recognitions have come as a result of the innovation called e-wallet that was invented in Nigeria by Cellulant Nigeria Limited, under the guidance of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina.

    It will be recalled that in 2011, Cellulant Corporation, was contracted to develop the technology for the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) Program and also to provide program management support to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD).

    Cellulant, within 90 days, not only put the technology together, but led the delivery on the ground in 754 local governments and 87,300 villages. The grip of the cabal that had held Nigeria’s farmers hostage for more than 40 years on the purse of government was broken.

    Based on the success of the GES programme, many local and international industry players have commended it.

    Among them was Chairman, Nigeria Cassava Growers’ Association, Delta branch Mr. Justus Kachukwu,.

    Kachukwu said that GES enabled farmers in the state to receive cassava stems early in the year and promptly plant the crop which have been yielding bumper harvest.

    Similarly, agricultural experts from Tanzania lauded the scheme and have even embarked on understudying it.

    A two-member team led by Damian Gabagambi and Chaboba Nkangwa, who were sent by the Tanzanian Central Government to understudy the operational modalities of GES commended the scheme.

    The government is now evolving this platform into an end-to-end payment system for agriculture called the Nigeria Agriculture Payment Initiative (NAPI).

    “Because of this e-wallet system; Nigerian farmers can now say; “thank God Almighty, We are free at last,” the Cellulant boss said.

  • Mobile money transactions hit N98.1b

    Mobile money transactions hit N98.1b

    •‘46% financially excluded’

    The Minister of Communications Technology (ComTech), Dr. Omobola Johnson has said total transactions achieved through the use of mobile money since it was introduced about four years ago has hit $600million (about N98.1billion) while total number of people that have subscribed to the initiative is also about one million.

    She lamented that while the situation is gradually improving, currently 35 million adult Nigerians (about 46 per cent) are financially excluded.

    Dr Johnson who spoke at the Centre for Value and Leadership (CVL) Economic Growth Sectorcelebration in Lagos, said more people in Nigeria have a mobile phone than have a bank account, adding that 75 per cent of adults living in urban areas and 39 per cent of them living in rural areas have access to a pre-paid mobile phone services.

    According to her, 18 mobile money operators have so far been registered while since the commencement of operations, approximately one million people have subscribed to the alternative payment platform.

    She said about 67,000 persons have been registered as agents while over 11million transactions of over $600million have been conducted

    “While uptake has been initially slow, improving infrastructure, fine-tuning of legislation and increasing confidence in product by consumers will result in significant acceleration

    “Mobile money is currently mostly used to buy airtime; it however has the potential to serve as a platform for drawing more people into formal financial services,” she said.

    She lamented that analysis has shown that a significant proportion of payments in the country are cash based with total payments estimated at $695billion (about N113.7trillion) per annum. Of these, cash accounts for over 90 per cent of transactions in terms of volume, and about 60 per cent in total value

    “Bank transfers and cheque payments combined make up less than 0.5 per cent in terms of volume and approximately 38 per cent in terms of value.

    “Other digital forms of payment are increasing in volume however they currently make up only about two per cent in value

    “Most payments (in terms of value) are between businesses and persons (B2B, B2P, P2P); government payments however have high potential to change the payment landscape of the country,” the minister said, adding that cash-based transactions are not only expensive but risky and promote insecurity in the financial system and the country.

    According to her, to redress this situation, the Federal Government has started implementing policies to increase the adoption of digital forms of payments with information communications technology (ICTs) being at the heart of the success of such policies, especially in the area of providing infrastructure for the delivery of services, applications for management, security and adoption of services.

    She said: “Although the situation is improving, currently 35 million adult Nigerians (about 46 per cent) are financially excluded. Adoption of products and services not supplied by deposit money banks have contributed the most to reducing exclusion (that is. the “formal other” category).”

    According to her, specific policies and legislation crafted relating to the development of the ICT sector include: National ICT Policy of August 2012; National Broadband Plan 2013-2018 of May 2013; and Guidelines for Nigerian Content in ICT of November 2013

    She explained that while the Connect Nigeria initiative was aimed at speeding up the building out of communications infrastructure so that all Nigeria has access to good quality and affordable, high-speed telecom and internet services, Connect Nigerians ensures that Nigerians have affordable and convenient access to devices and have the capacity to use them; so that all could share in the benefits of ICTs.

    Local Content in the industry is also targeted at lowering the barriers to entry and increase the participation of indigenous companies in the ICT sector and stimulate job creation in the industry

    Other measures include “Increase the adoption of ICTs by government to achieve greater transparency, efficiency, and productivity in governance and citizen engagement; implementing a national broadband strategy and roadmap that seeks to increase broadband penetration from six per cent to 30 per cent by 2018; 3G/LTE Wireless Broadband Coverage to 80 per cent of the population; Fixed broadband to 16 per cent of population based on fibre by 2018; Minimum download speeds of 1.5 Mbps; and Open Non-Discriminatory Access.”

  • ‘Stop discrimination in online transactions’

    PayPal’s Regional Director for Africa and Israel, EfiDahan has called on stakeholders in the e-payment market to address discrimination against Nigeria in the e-commerce market.

    Speaking at a partnership forum with FirstBank, he said many merchants were refusing to approve transactions with Nigeria Internet Protocol (IP) address, noting that there is need to instill confidence in the global e-commerce market.

    PayPal entered 10 countries last week, including Nigeria, to provide online payment alternatives for consumers via mobile phones or personal computers in markets often blighted by financial fraud.

    PayPal Executive in charge of  Emerging Market, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region said the payments unit of eBay Inc, told Bloomberg the expansion would bring the number of countries it serves to 203.

    He said consumers in Nigeria, which has 60 million users and Africa’s largest population, along with nine other markets in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America, would be able to make payments through PayPal.

    “PayPal has been going through a period of reinvention, refreshing many of its services to make them easier to use on mobile (phones), allowing us to expand into fast-developing markets,” Keeley said.

    Once the services go live, customers in the 10 countries with access to the Web and a bank card authorized for Internet transactions will be able to register for a PayPal account and make payments to millions of sites worldwide.

    Initially, PayPal is only offering “send money” services for consumers to pay for goods and services at PayPal-enabled merchant sites while safeguarding their financial details. This is free to consumers and covered by fees it charges merchants.

    “We think we can give our sellers selling into this market a great deal of reassurance,” said Keeley, a former regional banking executive with Standard Chartered Plc and senior executive with payment card company Visa Inc.

    PayPal does not yet cover peer-to-peer transactions, which allow consumers to send money to other consumers. It has not yet enabled local merchants in the new markets to receive payments, nor is it offering other forms of banking services, he said.

    A 2013 survey of 200 UK ecommerce sites by Visa’s CyberSource unit estimated that 1.26 percent of online orders are fraudulent and that 85 percent of merchants expected fraud to increase or remain static last year.

  • Large transactions drive UBA loans by 42% to N971b

    United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc grew its loan book by 42 per cent in 2013 as large-ticket transactions in the power, oil and gas sectors pushed the bank’s lending to a new high of N937 billion.

    Analysis of the bank’s audited report and accounts for the year ended December 31, 2013 confirmed that the bank kept to its projection to increase lending support to critical sectors of the Nigerian and African economy. UBA Plc has business operations in 18 other African countries outside Nigeria.

    The bank’s loan to deposit ratio stood at 44.3 per cent, a major achievement that gives it strong headroom to keep expanding its lending portfolio. The financials also showed a healthy liquidity position with a liquidity ratio of 55 per cent in 2013, substantially above the regulatory minimum of 25 per cent.

    Key extracts of the report also showed appreciable improvements in the top-line, operational efficiency and customer’s confidence. The board of the bank has recommended a dividend of 50 kobo per share.

    The report indicated that gross earnings rose from N220.1 billion in 2012 to N264.7 billion in 2013. The top-line performance was largely driven by a growth of 40.4 per cent in loans and advances as well as a 25 per cent growth in the bank’s total deposits.

    Consequently, the bank’s loan-to-deposit ratio improved from 38.7 per cent to 44.3 per cent. It also enhanced its operational efficiency and productivity with the cost-to-income ratio improving by four percentage points from 64.8 per cent to 60.9 per cent. Profit before tax grew by 7.8 per cent to N56.06 billion in 2013 as against N52.01 billion in 2012. This indicated a return on equity of 21.8 per cent. The bank’s balance sheet expanded to N2.64 trillion while total deposit base closed the year at N2.22 trillion.

    The significant increase in lending had a positive impact on the bank’s released financials with interest income rising significantly by 23.8 per cent to N186 billion while fee and commission based income rose 5.1 per cent to N50.01 billion.

    Further analysis also showed impressive lending process. In spite of the significant increase in lending portfolio, the bank was able to reduce the incidence of non-performing loans on its books well below the industry average and regulatory threshold. Non-performing loans averaged 1.19 per cent only in 2013, one of the lowest in the banking industry and well below the regulatory threshold of 5.0 per cent.

    Group managing director, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Mr Phillips Oduoza, had earlier said the bank committed $700 million in funding to the power sector privatization exercise in Nigeria , financing different investors to acquire the power assets put on sale by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 2013.

    Some of the major deals UBA actively participated in the power sector include taking up $120 million, N19.44 billion, of the financing in respect of Transcorp Ughelli Power Plant. The bank also acted as mandated lead arranger, underwriting the entire facility of $122 million, N20 billion, for Kann Utilities’ acquisition of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, financing the payment of 75 per cent acquisition of 60 per cent equity stake in Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company. The bank also threw its financial weight behind Aura Energy for the Acquisition of Jos Electricity Distribution Company, acting as the lead arranger for N9.6 billion to finance the payment of 75 per cent of Aura’s 60 per cent equity stake in Jos Electricity Distribution Company.

    UBA also successfully arranged debt financing of $68 million as well as secured equity investment from a strategic and technical investors for the acquisition of the Shiroro Hydroelectric Power Plc by North South Power Company Limited.

    “UBA had a good performance for full year 2013. This performance puts us in a position to continue to pursue our goal to achieve Industry leadership in the medium term. We were also able to gain considerable strides in our project Alpha initiatives by improving customer service delivery and leveraging our balance sheet to participate in emerging growth sectors of the economy,” Oduoza said in a comment on the 2013 performance.

    According to him, the performance in 2013 was largely due to prudent cost management policies, enhanced efficiency of the bank’s network and the impact of other productivity initiatives.

    “Our bank achieved a good result despite a challenging operating environment, demonstrating the strength and resilience of our people and their dedication to implementing our growth plans in 2013,” Oduoza said.

  • Mobile money transactions hit N300m

    About three years after it was introduced, the bank-led mobile money model has recorded a major success. Total transactions across the various mobile money (MM) schemes have hit a record N300 million as at the end of January, underscoring a tipping point in the shift towards the cashless society.

    The value was achieved in more than 12,000 transactions and did not include transactions carried out within individual networks.

    According to sources at the Nigeria Interbank Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) who craved anonymity, though a marginal increase of N50million over the value for November, last year when value stood at N250million exchanged in 10,000 deals; it, however, showed the increasing ability to replace cash with digital money transferred via mobile phone.

    It was gathered that the ability of a mobile money user to send money directly to the wallet of a user on any other service provider was facilitated by connectivity service being provided by National Central Switch (NCS) that is offering the technology handshake.

    Without interconnectivity the difficult decision of which mobile money service to choose might be influenced by which members of the customer’s peer group are already using a given service, according to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek.

    The mobile money scheme has not recorded success in the country as it has in other parts of the world, especially Kenya where the Mpesa has been an outstanding success. While analysts have blamed this on the bank-model chosen by the CBN, arguing that it would have been otherwise if it was driven by the telcos, the lenders say the telcos are asking for too much have cornered more than 120 million customers.

    Acting Chief Executive Officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Mathew Willsher has called on the relevant authorities to evolve a workable mobile money model in the country while his counterpart in Airtel Nigeria has also blamed the slow uptake of the scheme on the model adopted.

    A mobile money expert and Principal Associate, MobileMoneyAfrica, Emmanuel Okoegwale, said there are only 47 mobile money deployments in West Africa out of 100 deployments in Africa.

    According to him, the continent has shown great promise in the mobile financial services sphere but yet grapples with millions that are actively unbanked across all regions.

    “Financial inclusion has become the buzz word within the regulatory, policy, financial, innovators, and technology circles and in the formal financial services space but significant barriers still stand in the way of reaching the bottom of the pyramid in Africa.

    “Nigerians should expect a much more aggressive roll out of services as collaborations deepen between licensed providers and Mobile network operators and other industry ecosystem players as we have seen with MTN / Diamond Bank.

    “Affordable and stable mass access channels like USSD and STK becoming more available and cheaper to use which in turn will scale up adoption since mobile money is a mass market product and should be immediately compatible with all mobile devices. Agency growth and spread will be the most significant achievement in 2014 as more formal retail distribution outlets step into mobile money and agency banking services to lower their transaction cost and reduce cash at hand in their outlets. Generally, the outlook for mobile money in 2014 is positive and encouraging based on the developments that we recorded in 2013,” Okegwale was quoted as saying.

    According to him, a recent report released by African Development Bank, on Financial Inclusion in Africa, finds that technological advances such as mobile money innovations have started to make inroads into banking the unbanked in Africa, with 14% of adults reporting they have used it in the past 12 months in comparison to less than 6% of adults in all other regions globally that used mobile money in the past year.

    The African Development Bank predicts technology could be a “game changer” in drawing the financially excluded into the formal banking world.

    It would be recalled that transactions among mobile money schemes commenced in March last year after the expiration of the deadline of February 28 CBN gave to operators to connect to NCS that is offering the connectivity.

    Presently, there are 16 companies licensed by CBN to operate mobile money transactions.

    The CBN had said that the MMOs were licensed to accelerate the transformation of the nation’s payment system which would emphasis use of mobile phones.

  • Seven states control 90% of cash transactions, says CBN

    Seven states control 90% of cash transactions, says CBN

    Lagos and the six other states control about 90 per cent of the total cash transactions in the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said.

    The other states are Rivers, Anambra, Abia, Kano, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    This, according to the CBN Deputy Governor (Operations), Mr. Tunde Lemo, was the reason the states were being slated for the second phase of the cash-less project billed to kick off on the July 1.

    Acknowledging that there have been and there are still challenges with the cash-less project, he said most of them are being resolved.

    He listed one of the major challenges to include intercon-nectivity in some of the clusters, which he said, is being addressed.

    Lemo said besides the use of alternative channels of transactions such as Point of Sales (PoS), the cashless project would be driven through the telephone.

    Nigeria is second in number of mobile phone users in sub Saharan Africa after South Africa, which is also the largest economy in the region.

    Lemo also said the cash-less policy had been successful in Lagos, adding that the number of PoS machines in Lagos has increased significantly from about 5,000 when the policy took off last year, to over 150,000.

    “We still have a few challenges, but if I look back, I really would say that we have done a lot to transform the payment system in Lagos through PoS,” he said.

    The cash-less policy, whose implementation began in Lagos in January, last year, is aimed at reducing the dominance of cash in the system. The policy specifies penal charges for individuals and corporate organisations that want to withdraw or lodge cash above prescribed limits.

    Under the plan, the CBN pegged the daily cumulative cash withdrawal or deposit limit for individual accounts at N500,000 per day and N3 million per day for corporate accounts.

    Just a week ago, the Chief Executive Officer, Electronic Payment Providers Association of Nigeria (E-PPAN), Mrs. Onajite Regha, said the coming on board on the next phase of the cash-less policy in July may raise the value of electronic funds transfer in the country to N160 billion per day by the end of the year.

    The E-PPAN boss, who spoke in Lagos, said the current value of electronic fund transfers – put at N80billion per day by the CBN, would most likely double because there would be a lot of changes, which would compel people to use e-Fund transfer channels.

    The Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) is handling transactions worth about N20 billon daily, while the Nigeria Electronic Funds Transfer is conducting about N60 billion worth of transactions daily.

     

     

     

  • NEFT, NIP daily transactions reach N40b

    Transactions by the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) under its NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) and Nigerian Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) have reached about N40 billion daily.

    NIP and NEFT are products used by corporate organisations to make payment for huge transactions electronically, in line with the cash-less policy. Data gathered from NIBSS also showed that as a result of the policy, cheques, Point-of-Sale (PoS) and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) use have continued to rise in volume and value.

    The Head, Shared Services at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Chidi Umeano, said the cash-less project has continued to record huge success, adding that the initial challenges associated with the alternative channels are being tackled.

    “Banks have continued to roll out innovative electronic payment platforms to meet customers’ expectations. The cash-less policy has been very successful in Lagos considering when we started and how far we have gone in terms of PoS deployment. When we started the cash-less Lagos, we had less than 10,000 PoS, but we have over 150,000 PoS machines in the state alone,” he said.

    As a result of the significant success recorded in Lagos, the apex bank said it planned to extend the policy to Rivers, Kano, Anambra and Abia states as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) from July 1.

    CBN Deputy Governor, Operations, Tunde Lemo, said: “When we talk about nationwide roll-out, we are also being careful to ensure that we make use of resources in a smart way. Cash doesn’t flow in the same volume in every state. What we would do in July is to look at those other market clusters where large volumes are transacted and add them to Lagos.

    “It is cheaper that way because resources needed to cover the entire 923 square kilometres in Nigeria are huge. But you can achieve almost the same thing by looking at the pattern of cash distribution and you can cover about 90 per cent of that by adding about five more locations to Lagos. That is, Abuja, Kano, Aba, Port Harcourt and Onitsha.

    “That is basically what we want to do. We would get those five clusters and add them to Lagos. When we add those five locations to Lagos, then we would have covered about 90 per cent of the cash volume. We would see how far that goes and once we perfect that, we then begin to look at contiguous,” he said.

     

  • Currency transactions: Erring firms to be sanctioned

    The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has warned of severe sanctions against insurance firms that fail to report currency transactions of their customers.

    Its Director, Mrs Juliet Ibekaku, made this known at the National InsuranceCommission (NAICOM)Sensitisation Programme on Anti-Money Laundering and Combat of Financing of Terrorism Control Measures for Insurance Companies in Lagos.

    She noted that the NFIU’s end-of- year reports showed that only 3,871 Currency Transactions Reports (CTRs) were submitted by insurance companies last year. she added that the Unit would not hesitate to sanction some firms.

    Mrs. Ibekaku said failure to file currency transaction reports and Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) is a criminal offence.

    She said: “The NFIU would like to reiterate that failure to file CTRs and STRs is a criminal offence which the NFIU will enforce working closely with its counterpart in the law enforcement agencies and NAICOM.

    “The responsibility to take specific and timely action to prevent the financial system from reputational and legal risks rests mainly with the insurance companies in the first instance because of the nature of the services and products they offer to their customers and because of the type of clientele they serve.”

    She said the NFIU and NAICOM intends to issue further guidance on some of the emerging issues that have been observed, adding that the anti-money laundering law, mandates financial institutions to report transactions, lodgments or transfer of funds over N5 million or N1 million by an individual and N10 million or N5 million by a corporate entity to the NFIU.

    Deputy Director, Inspectorate, NAICOM, Emmanuel Farinu, said efforts were being made by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), to review jurisdictions globally to identify areas that pose risk to international financial system and determe the extent of compliance with anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism requirements.

    Assistant Director, Inspectorate NAICOM, Sam Onyeka, said the Commission has put in place measures that would enable operators to have a harmonised CTRs and STRs reporting system.