Four Banks Get Knocks From Cbn For E-payment Dispense Error

BEVERLY HILLS, February 22, (THEWILL) – Four Deposit Money Banks were last year sanctioned for non-reversal of e-payment dispense error after the specified 48-hour timeframe given by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for such reversals.

This was disclosed by Shola Agboola, CBN Assistant Director, Payment Policy and Oversight, Banking and Payment System, who revealed that following the issuance of a circular directing banks to install and automate auto reversal, the apex bank had found four banks wanting.

“When we carried out our oversight function on the banks to ensure that they have done what they were asked to do, four banks were penalised and sanctioned last year,” he said at a press conference organised by the Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) in Lagos.

He warned that a situation where a customer, who had a problem, and made a complaint before the expiration of the issue to the banks, without being attended to could no longer continue.

Meanwhile, banks, including merchant banks, will on Thursday, be given awards for their contributions towards driving the cashless programme at the CBN Electronic Payment Incentive Scheme Efficiency Awards.

Nigerian banks in the past year paid out almost N400 million as cash back, as an incentive, on the use of point of sale terminals.

“The cash back was introduced in 2014 as an incentive for customers to use their cards for payments and to drive the usage of PoS, customers are paid back 40 percent of the 1.25 percent that merchants are charged on PoS usage.”

Christabel Onyejekwe, NIBSS Executive Director, Business Development, disclosed that the payment of cash back to bank customers had been stopped in December 2015, but would be replaced with the loyalty engine, which will give out points for PoS usage.

Onyejekwe explained that the difference between the cash back and the loyalty engine was that “one gives back cash and the other records points that can be redeemed at a later time.”

She explained that of the 120,000 PoS terminals in the country, only about 100,000 were connected to the NIBSS platform and only 62,000 were active, saying “NIBSS is talking to stakeholders to withdraw the dormant PoS from circulation.”

Story by David Oputah