Long queues and frustrated customers sleeping outside Banks to get cash still persists across the country despite CBN’s directive to commercial Banks to release old naira notes back into the banking system.
The Apex Bank also directed Banks to load their ATMs and conduct fiscal operations to ease the month-long cash crunch that plunged the economy into financial disarray.
Data from the natural interbank settlement system indicates that usage of electronic payment system rose by 30.8 percent to 51.84 trillion naira in March 2023 from 39.63 trillion naira recorded in the previous month.
Speaking on this development on Business Nigeria, Chief Economist and partner at Pricewaterhousecoopers, Andrew Nevin said there is relative improvement but we are not out of the woods yet.
Speaking on banks seeing more of withdrawals and reduction in deposits, Mr Nevi said the banking electronic channels needs more stability as the networks are currently not stable hence people are withdrawing more.
He noted that with what Nigerians have faced in the period of cash crunch, most have lost confidence in the system.
On if the current technology system being used by the banks can accommodate the lager volume of daily transaction, Mr Nevin said a lot of countries don’t have this type of instant payment.
According to him, the issue is not the fundamental lib system it’s scaling it up to handle the volume.
“When you’re going to have more transactions you need more investment.
“It’s not that complex a system, it’s proven to be as robust. It’s just a question of investing in the hardware and software to make sure you can handle the bigger volumes”.
He added that some banks have struggled more during this transition period than other banks have.
The system, according to Mr Nevin is already robust but needs a little investment in the physical Hardware infrastructure, the data channels, the width of the pipes, the servers to be able to take that much more volume.
Speaking on risk mitigation, Mr Nevin said they are currently working with many banks that are intently aware of cyber security risks.
He added that even though the organisation is doing all it can with security, there are so many checks and balances but this doesn’t mean we don’t have cyber losses and criminal elements trying to exploit the system.
