Electronic Payment in Cashless Economy of Nigeria: Problems and Prospect

Abstract

Before the emergence of modern banking system, banking operation was manually done which lead to a slowdown in settlement of transactions. This manual system involves posting transactions from one ledger to another with human hands. This work examines electronic payment in cashless economy of Nigeria: Problems and Prospect. The new policy by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on cashless system of payment has raised a lot of concern to the growth of Nigerian economy, with the objective of reducing robbery, high cost of processing cash, revenue leakages, inefficient treasury management, promoting economic development through financial intermediation, among others.  The aim of this paper is to ascertain the extent to which electronic payment affect cashless economy of Nigeria. Descriptive research design was used to carry out this study. The study indicates that the electronic system of payment has a great implication in cashless economy of Nigerian but it will led to significant decrease in deposit mobilization and credit extension by Nigerian deposit money banks. Consequently, the authors concluded that cashless system of payment will be examined and develop the e-payment system first, so that people will be used to it before talking of cashless economy. This is because; bulk of the Nigerian economy is driven by SME and petty traders. To retain this policy of cashless economy in Nigeria, the authors recommended that the migration of our payments system towards a cashless society would require some reforms and a lot of effort and sensitization especially for low income group, who are currently deeply rooted in using cash and see it as a convenient and easy way of receiving and making payments. The sensitization exercise would require the combined effort of various stakeholders, including government, financial institutions, clergy and non-bank providers of payment services. There should be improvement in infrastructural development so as to enhance e-payment system.