Nigeria is Africa’s undisputed real-time payments and digital payments leader, recording 3.7 billion real-time transactions in 2021 and ranking 6th in the league table of the world’s most developed real-time payments markets, according to the third edition of ACI’s Prime Time for Real-Time report
The widespread uptake of new digital and real-time payment services helped to unlock US$3.2 billion of additional economic output in 2021, representing 0.67% of the country’s GDP – forecast to rise to $6 billion in 2026 (1.01% of the country’s GDP)
Nigeria’s real-time and digital payments revolution is driving economic growth and financial inclusion at unprecedented levels for the largest African economy, according to the third edition of Prime Time for Real-Time, published by ACI Worldwide, (NASDAQ: ACIW), in partnership with GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr). The report – tracking real-time payment volumes and growth across 53 countries – includes an economic impact study for the first time, providing a comprehensive view of the economic benefits of real-time for consumers, businesses, and the broader economy across 30 countries.
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The report reveals Nigeria as Africa’s undisputed real-time and digital payments leader. The country recorded 3.7 billion real-time transactions 2021, ranking sixth in the league table of the world’s most developed real-time payments markets behind India, China, Thailand, Brazil, and South Korea. The widespread uptake of new digital and real-time payment services helped Nigeria unlock US$3.2 billion of additional economic output in 2021, representing 0.67 percent of the country’s GDP.
Real-time transactions are forecast to rise to 8.8 billion annually by 2026, a 5-year CAGR of 18.6 percent. This will help unlock US$6 billion of additional GDP in 2026, representing 1.01 percent of the country’s GDP, meaning Nigeria will rank in 4th place among the world’s economies realizing the maximum economic benefits of real-time payments.
“Nigeria is fast becoming a posterchild across Africa for the successful digital transformation of the country’s economy,” said Santhosh Rao, Head of Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, ACI Worldwide. “Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Nigerians increasingly expect higher speeds, greater simplicity, and modern thinking from financial service providers. While cash is still being used widely, the shift towards digital and real-time payment services is testament to the success of government regulators in fostering rapid growth in digital openness, particularly payments.”
The rapid growth has also been propelled by key players in the country’s payments industry. One of these players, Interswitch Group, a leading payments technology company, has been actively driving revolutionary payment innovation in Nigeria for 20 years.
In recent years, Interswitch has partnered with ACI to deploy cutting-edge technologies that are changing the face of payments in Nigeria. These innovative products include single- issuing platforms for all payment types, digital payment acceptance for acquirers, enterprise payments platforms, and secure omni-channel payment processing platforms, among others.
“As more Nigerians adopt real-time and digital payments, we have seen a commensurate increase in the need for backend infrastructure to enable these transactions,” explained Jonah Adams, Managing Director, Digital Infrastructure and Managed Services, Interswitch Systegra. “Interswitch and ACI are committed to driving digital transformation across Africa via the deployment of relevant digital, innovative infrastructure and solutions that optimize business efficiency and drive customers’ growth and profitability.”
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“Our research shows that governments that advance the real-time modernization of their national payments infrastructure create a win-win situation for all stakeholders in the payments ecosystem,” added Rao. “Consumers and businesses benefit from fast, frictionless and hyper-connected payments services, financial institutions future-proof their business in a highly competitive environment by speeding up cloud-first and data-centric modernization, and national governments boost economic growth, reduce the size of their shadow economy and create a fairer financial system for all.”
Nigeria’s real-time payments scheme – NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP) – was launched in July 2011. The system is supported by all commercial banks, micro-finance banks and mobile money operators, and can be used via a number of channels, including internet and mobile banking, bank branches, kiosks, mobile USD, POS terminals and ATMs. This ubiquity has helped NIP achieve today’s high adoption and usage rates.
There is now an ongoing drive within Nigeria to extend this momentum to cross-border use cases – a logical next step that will simplify and reduce the cost of international business, while removing exchange rate-related surprises on returning home or for remittance payments. And nations across the continent are increasingly positioning themselves to replicate Nigeria’s success as Africa as a whole remains a continent of untapped potential.
“Africa is in an ideal position to capitalise on the lessons learned from other countries and continents and maximise the impact and benefits real-time payments provide,” concluded Rao. “There is a renewed appetite and enthusiasm across the continent to increase financial inclusion and use real-time payments to build the continent’s future digital economies. Banks should look at the market as entering a new phase of high opportunity and assess whether the technology they currently use is fit for purpose. Banks that want to succeed and successfully compete in the future need to embark on a long-term digital transformation strategy, that allows them to both connect to new schemes easily and innovate quickly using the real-time rails.”
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