CBN tasks stakeholders on innovation, others

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)

By Victor Uzoho

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has tasked stakeholders in the finance industry to scale up their capacity to innovate by developing products that would meet customers’ needs and enhance their capacity in handling transactions.

This charge was made by the Governor, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, represented by Deputy Governor, Financial Systems Stability, Aishah Ahmad, at the 2019 Electronic Payment Incentive Scheme (EPIS) Efficiency Awards ceremony organised by the CBN and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) recently, in Lagos.

According to him, the industry has successfully grown transaction volumes across different platforms and network, but needs to put in place a champion system that would support the achieved growth.
  He said: “The payment systems have clearly improved and should continue to improve. A great number of fintechs supporting faster payments, developments, advancements and the adoption of mobile as the bank channels also made it very easy to conduct transactions.

“Transformations in the industry are driving the increase in transaction volumes but despite all the progress made, electronic transactions even though they have grown are not at that expected level yet and the tendencies of increasing digitisation and technologies is that we have so many insiders to work with.

“This award ceremony brings all of the players together. We are responsible for the transformation that is happening in the finance industry and we are responsible for achieving this milestone.”

He noted that the CBN will continue to cooperate with stakeholders on how to foster innovation and allow foreign players to come into the market, which would help increase financial stability.

“The categories of the awards reflect the CBN’s aspiration for the payment system. It recognises the leaders that are both in bank and none bank categories in those critical areas the CBN is driving cashless partner efficiency, innovation and better customer experience.

“We are very excited about partner incentives because it expands the number of players in the financial system, managing assets for people that are living in lower areas and the under banked areas as well.
  “We have also introduced risk based cyber security framework for deposit money banks and payment service providers. The goal is to get a payment system that is nationally utilized and internationally recognised. We want to promote efficiency, support innovation and manage the risk of these new technologies,” he added.

He urged stakeholders to collaborate, share vital information and report security threats in the system, stating that the industry has to move beyond fund monitory and compliance and look for these threats and eliminate them.

The EPIS Efficiency awards was established to reward and celebrate financial institutions, merchants and other stakeholders at the forefront of driving electronic payment in Nigeria.

Guaranty Trust Bank Plc. emerged a multiple award winner, winning the Card Usage on Point Of Sale (POS) Terminal Award, POS Acquired Transaction Award in the Cashless Driver Awards Bank Category, Transaction Efficiency Award, E-Reference Operations Efficiency Award both in the Real Time Payments Category.

The bank also won the Identity Service Driver Award, and the USSD Transaction Award and also won the 2018 Bank of the Year Award. Among other award winners were Bet9ja who won the Web Volume Award, Shoprite winning Merchant POS Award, while Etransact won the Mobile Money Operators Award both in the Non Bank Category.