The Challenges With PoS Will Be Tackled By NIBSS And CeBIH

In light of achieving a cashless economy, the heads of the committee of e-Banking heads, Global Accelerex, NIBSS and CeBIH have decided to look into the Point of Sale (PoS) terminal challenge in the country.

The PoS system is a computerised replacement for cash registers. Many enterprises make use of this medium as a way to boost their businesses. PoS is designed to make payments hassle-free and help the business owner have an inventory of transactions and track the performance of their stock, customers, money and the staff.

However, the major challenge is with unavailability of service at all times. Many times, customers are disappointed with the unavailability of network service, which makes it more difficult to educate the small business owners on the benefits of using a PoS. With regard to this, the Managing Director, Global Accelerex Limited, Mr. Tunde Ogungbade said:

‘We have a long way to go and through this innovation summit, the partnership, knowledge exchange and investment on the side of NIBSS and banks, we are going to see an exponential growth over the next 48 months in the PoS deployment.’

Currently, there are only 150,000 terminals in circulation, whereas, there are over a million registered enterprises nationwide. Aside from the point of driving a cashless economy, Mr. Dele Adeyinka, the Chairman, CeBIH opine that stakeholders of different businesses need to be adequately informed on the essence of creating alternative payment channels to boost their sales. ‘If you want to drive customers to alternate channels, there is still a lot that all stakeholders in this industry need to do to ensure that the terminals are adapted for usage to facilitate alternate means of payment. The singular enemy we are all fighting is cash; so, we need to drive more terminals’, he said.

While Mr. Adeyinka has placed a great emphasis on creating room for alternate payments to drive sales there are business owners who complain about the high  charges of each transaction. A number of business owners have abandoned the PoS system because they could not cope with the high charges off little profits.

Nevertheless, this problem is yet to be publicly addressed. The unstable network is one turnoff; the high charges is another.

As it stands, Mr. Dapo Adeosun, the Group Head, Customer Relationship Management, NIBSS Plc has addressed the issue with the unstable network. He said that the deployment of terminals using dual SIM cards was implored to tackle the problem with fluctuating networks. Also, the strength of particular networks will be determined in specific areas to avoid failed transactions.

As you know, the issue with fluctuating networks in the country is a tough nut to crack. The best network in a certain area can decide to take a break during the direst period. As long as power instability persists and broadband infrastructure is still under review, the security department sure still have a long way to go.