Most of the articles I write are inspired either by personal experience or from the experience of the people around me. Today’s article is personal.
I was at the F.C.T High Court, Maitama division recently, they had erected a new parking complex since the last time I was there. This is a welcome development, with the introduction of the new parking fees in Abuja, with your car in the parking complex, you are sure your car would not get clamped and impounded no matter how long you spend in court since you pay for parking on your way out. If you live in Abuja, you would understand and appreciate what I mean, it’s such a blessing and a relief.
I digress! Back to the matter. When I was done with what I came for in court, I opened my wallet to get some money out to pay for my ticket and I realised I had no money in it. I headed to the ATM point located within the court premises, only to find it ‘out of service’. I headed towards the payment center, hoping to catch my colleagues or at least someone I knew but I wasn’t so lucky. I tried calling my colleagues, but you know how the network in this our beautiful country behaves. While standing trying to weigh my options, I noticed a sign on the window of the payment center that boldly read, ‘POS PAYMENT AVAILABLE’. My joy knew no bound, I sighed with relief and proceeded to get my card out to pay, I was both shocked and disappointed when I was told ‘we only accept cash payment’. Really!!! So whats up with the bold POS sign on your window?
Now from my little knowledge on POS payments prior to this experience, I understood POS to mean that I could pay for goods and services rendered with my card, there really wasn’t any need to carry cash around. On getting to the office, I decided to do a little research on POS payments. So here is what my skilful search on Google produced 'Point of sale (also called as POS or Checkout) is the place where a retail transaction is completed. It is the point at which a customer makes a payment to the merchant in exchange for goods or services. At the point of sale the retailer would calculate the amount owed by the customer and provide options for the customer to make payment. The merchant will also normally issue a receipt for the transaction'. In summary it basically meant that POS was a means of on the spot payment, whether by cash, card or electronic payment. My bad I guess, but then again I was partially right too, payment by card is one of the various methods of POS payment. I guess like me, most Nigerians are ignorant to this fact too, because the two guys there with me went ‘then why do you have POS payment boldly written on your window?’. Anyway I was lucky enough and one of the guys paid for what I owed.
But it got me thinking hard about the cashless policy that was introduced by the CBN, it had finally made its way down to Abuja after a successful take off in Lagos. I wouldn’t go into details about the cashless policy, I am sure your bankers have bombarded you with emails about it, mine sure have. When I first heard about the cashless policy in 2011, I was really glad because it meant I didn’t have to carry cash around, which in turn meant that I didn’t have excess cash on me to make unbudgeted spending. For example if I buy a pair of shoe for 5200 Naira, it means that the 800 Naira change I would have if I had withdrawn 6000 Naira would be saved instead of using it to get a plate of rice and drink. On and on it goes, save save save until I become a super rich millionaire (wide grin). And so you can understand why I was anxious for the cashless policy to make its way to Abuja.
This court situation reminded me of the numerous times I had tried to use an ATM machine, only to find out the machine was either not dispensing cash or that the service was ‘unavailable at the moment’. Or when I tried to pay for a service with my card only to be told ‘we accept cash payments only’, or ‘the POS machine is not available at the moment’. I remember trying to pay for something once with my card, the process went smoothly until it was about to be completed, when the cashier said the network was down. Luckily I was with some cash with me and so I paid cash. Lo and behold the card payment already went through, I was lucky to still be standing there when the alert came in on my phone so it was promptly resolved.
It got me thinking about how ready we are for a cashless economy!! Proper and sufficient infrastructure had not been put in place for the policy to be a success yet we jump right into implementing the policy. It reminds me of the ban on araba buses by the F.C.T minister, I must admit that it is a welcome development one that most Abuja motorists are happy about, but one that we are not ready for. It is a policy that is not well though out, one that leaves thousands of ‘ Abujans’ stranded everyday at the start and close of work, I digress, that is an article for another day.
No matter how beautiful a policy is, it would be a complete failure if no proper and sufficient structure has been put in place for its success, there is no way it can magically become a success without the necessary structure being put in place. I lived in Cambridge for a year and I can count the number of times I had to go into the bank, once when I lost my ATM card and the other time when I needed to pay in some cash I got when my parents visited, the cashless economy made life easy. You wouldn’t believe that some Britons have never set eye on a £50 note, you need to see the way they scrutinise it when you use it to pay, they know you are Nigerian the moment you use a £50 note to pay for something. I paid all my bills online, I remember making my hair once with a fellow Nigerian, I had no cash on me so I simply asked for her bank details and transferred the money. We laughed about how it wouldn’t have been the case if we were back home. I am glad we are getting to that point gradually.
Before throwing Nigerians into hardship, CBN should be sure it has put in place the necessary structure for the success of the policy with the 150,000 Naira a day withdrawal limit, most people would become room owners within the banks. To avert the hardship that this cashless economy would cause, I suggest the following be done before it is implemented.
1. Get the banks to make sure their ATMs work properly and are up most of the time. There is this ATM I have tried to use in Wuse 2 at least five times, it has never paid out any cash either to me or anybody I know.
2. Get business owners to install POS payment machines at their check out. Especially for businesses to make huge sales daily and where a transaction can go as high as 100,000 Naira. It is even in their own interest, as thieves would have nothing to steal.
3. Make it mandatory for all bank account holders to have an ATM card. It should be automatically the moment an account is opened, no need to make a separate request for it, as is the case with most banks. Where the customer is an old customer, get him to come and request one, make it easy to access ATM request forms online or by phone.
4. Make the online banking procedure easy. I requested the online facility at my bank, over a month ago, nothing has been done about my request and I am still waiting to hear from them. I recently had to purchase a ticket online, a ticket I would have paid £735 for online, I ended up paying £830 at the bank. If I had my internet banking up and running I would have easily save almost a hundred pounds.
The internet has a role to play in the success of internet banking, so the state of the internet coverage in the country should be taken into consideration.
In a situation where each of these parties have failed to comply, nobody would complain when the CBN attaches a monetary penalty for failure to comply, that is only after it has provide the necessary structure for the policy to succeed.
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