Tony Chukwunyem 
As the country’s cashless policy gains momentum, more Nigerians are gradually shunning bricks and mortar banking services by relying more on electronic channels for daily transactions.
According to findings by New Telegraph, the ease of transactions and proximity have led to an increase in the use of the various e-channels and an equally increase in the number of Point of Sale (PoS) terminals deployed across the country by financial institutions.
Available report by the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) has shown that the number of terminals rose by 119.46 per cent to hit a record 5.90 million as at the end of March 2025, compared with 2.69 million in the corresponding period of last year.
This means that a total of 3.21 million PoS terminals were deployed across the country during the period. New Telegraph’s analysis of the data revealed a steady increase in the number of deployed PoS terminal in the last few years, especially in 2024.
Specifically, the data indicated that the number of deployed terminals stood at 2.48 million in January; 2.58 million in February; 2.69 million in March; 2.80 million in April; 2.85 million in May and 2.94 million in June.
It also shows that deployed PoS terminals stood at 3.05 million in July; 3.15 million in August; 3.24 million in September; 4.87 million in October; 5.40 million in November and 5.56 million in December.
Similarly, in the first three months of this year, deployed PoS terminals stood at 5.57 million in January, 5.87 million in February and 5.90 million in March. Further analysis of the data equally shows that there has been a significant increase in the number of registered PoS terminals in recent years.
For instance, the number of registered PoS terminals in the country, according to NIBSS, stood at 7.79 million in December 2024; 3.49 million in December 2023; 2.33 million in December 2022; 1.32 million in December 2021 and 690,070 in December 2020. For the first quarter of this year, the number of registered PoS terminals stood at 7.79 million in January, 8.06 million in February and 8.36 million in March.
According to analysts, factors such as, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) initiatives to promote its cashless policy, the impact of the 2020 Covid-19 crisis and the naira redesign programme introduced by the apex bank in late 2022, led to more Nigerians embracing epayment channels, thus resulting in the sharp rise in the number of deployed PoS terminals.
Indeed, in its report titled, “Instant Payments – 2020 Annual Statistics”, the NIBSS stated: “The Covid-19 pandemic changed the e-payments landscape, accelerating the adoption of instant payments as more people transitioned to electronic channels for funds exchange in the wake of governmentimposed lockdowns.”
However, industry experts attribute the surge in the number of deployed PoS terminals, particularly in the last two years, to the acute shortage of cash, occasioned by implementation challenges with the CBN’s naira redesign policy, which crippled economic activities across the country in the first quarter of 2023, thereby forcing bank customers, who were unable to access cash at the time, to rely on banking agents (PoS operators), resulting in a boom for suppliers of the terminals.
