According to information from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System(NIBSS), Nigerians paid N1.69 trillion electronically in the first seven months of 2022 on utility bills including as electricity, Pay TV subscriptions, and other common utilities.
This is an increase of 32.06 percent over the N1.28 trillion that was electronically spent on utilities during the same time in 2021.
This statistic shows that Nigerians are increasingly using electronic methods to pay their bills.
The NIBSS defines an e-bill pay channel as an accessible and seamless account-based electronic bill payment channel with online real-time transaction reporting, biller notification, and easy reconciliation.
It said, “e-BillsPay is an electronic bill payment platform that facilitates the payment of Bills, Fees, Levies, Premiums and Subscriptions, etc. by the banking public through electronic payment channels provided and managed by banks.”
It added that the payment gateway worked by allowing billers to validate data and notification of successful payments before connecting to the bank for customers to view a list of billers and payment receipts after a successful transaction.
Its touch points include bank branches, internet banking, mobile banking and USSD, and an agent network. While data reveal that payment value has increased, they also show that volume has decreased.
In the first seven months of 2022, the e-bill pay platform was used 562,030 times, which was a 24.16 per cent decrease from the 741,081 times it was used in the corresponding period of 2021.
Also speaking, the National President, Association of Mobile Money Agents in Nigeria, Victor Olojo, stated “Primarily, the increase in mobile usage and mobile payment has helped very aggressively in e-bills payment as people now have access to mobile phones and are now able to do payments themselves.
“Secondly, with financial inclusion, more people have access to finance and that way, they can link their accounts to their mobile numbers to carry out transactions. Also, a bulk of e-bills payments have to do with utilities, PayTV, and power. More Nigerians have been able to embrace mobile banking.”
