The Central Bank of Nigeria and Visa Incorporated, a multinational financial services company, are currently working together with partners to develop a framework that will allow contactless payment to thrive in Nigeria.
Andrew Uaboi, country manager at Visa, made this revelation in a keynote address titled “contactless as the future of payment in Africa” at the BusinessDay Conference on Thursday.
Contactless payment is a secured dispensation of cash where contact is avoided. The technology allows making payments using a debit or credit card, smartcard, or another payment device by using RFID technology or near-field communication, without the card or the person having any direct contact with the machine.
He defined contactless payment as the next frontier in the Nigerian Fintech and payment ecosystem. “It’s a new technology that would curb fraud and other financial related misconduct”, he said.
“I can assure you that it’s very secure. It’s as secure as using your regular cards to pay on the PoS machine. It even comes with some additional security features, which enables us to be able to ensure that transactions are not done fraudulently,” he said.
Nigerian small businesses will benefit more when they fully adopt the technology customer benefits, such as convenience and customer satisfaction.
When payments are becoming faster, it will translate to transactions, and more checkout times, which translates to a better customer experience- cutting down on frustration from waiting in queues while also reducing abandoned sales due to increased convenience.
“Contactless technology will enable the growth of small businesses and also assist individual businesses to thrive,” Uaboi said.
He said: “There has been a significant increase in contactless payments since the COVID-19 era. In the US, for example, one in six people testified that they carried out their first contactless payment during COVID last year.
“We’ve also seen a 40 percent year-on-year growth of contactless payment, and all of this payment is also enabling small businesses. It enables the growth of individual businesses as well as economies.”
