Posted by Layi Adeloye on
The use of cash as the predominant means of payments in Nigeria remains a culture rooted in ignorance, illiteracy and lack of appreciation of the merits of the electronic payment systems, the Chairman of Standard Trust Bank Plc, Chief Ferdinand Alabraba, has said.
The use of cash as the predominant means of payments in Nigeria remains a culture rooted in ignorance, illiteracy and lack of appreciation of the merits of the electronic payment systems, the Chairman of Standard Trust Bank Plc, Chief Ferdinand Alabraba, has said.
Speaking at the presentation of STB MasterCard and Maestro on Tuesday in Lagos, Alabraba attributed the high incidence of robberies on the highways, homes and business offices in Nigeria to the people's love for cash.
According to him, despite the fact that Nigeria's financial payment system had come a long way from 1894 when the bank of British West Africa introduced coins as means of settlement of trade transactions and debits. 'Nigeria's financial payment system predominantly remains a cash-driven economy, bogged by costly settlement processing, extensive and expanding informal economy with huge amount of currency still outside the banking system," he said.
He added, 'Equally disturbing is the difficulty faced by Nigerians in making payments when travelling overseas or purchasing goods from foreign countries by phone or through the Internet."
He stated that the consequence is that 'our countrymen deal largely in cash when they travel overseas."
Spelling out the dangers in the system, Alabraba said that the phenomenon had made Nigerians a target for international conmen in the United Kingdom and Europe.
However, he noted that the country was ripe enough to move away from the era of a cash-based economy to a card-driven economy.
Underscoring the introduction of the STB MasterCard and Maestro, the STB Chairman said that such a situation would invariably build a foundation for reduced transactions, increased payment efficiency and a consumer credit culture.
'The STB MasterCard readily offers us a better alternative and a unique platform that will catalyse the much expected economic growth," he stated.
Tracing the history of MasterCard back to 39 years ago with only 16 participating banks in the United States, Alabraba said that STB was proud to counted among the elite club of 25,000 member banks comprising some of the biggest and strongest banks in the world today.
He described the partnership between MasterCard and STB as synergistic, as 'the relationship will leverage the large branch network and retail customer-base of STB, and later UBA."
He identified another advantage of the MasterCard service thus: 'MasterCard provides global access to an unsurpassed network of payment outlets; form over 900,000 ATMs to more than 30million merchant outlets worldwide, including shops, restaurants, hotels and Internet where payments can be seamlessly consummated."
The Punch, Wednesday, June 15, 2005