Nigerian banks earn N133.92bn from e-payments in nine months

The adoption of electronic channels for financial transactions earned 12 Nigerian banks about N133.92bn revenue in the first nine months of 2020.

With many bank customers striving to maintain social distancing by avoiding the banking hall and leveraging the more convenient digital platforms for various financial transactions, earnings of the financial institutions have continued to expand.

Also, financial technology companies with products that facilitate payments on their platform in partnership with DMB have contributed significantly to the earnings of these banks.

Analyses of unaudited financial reports of 12 banks for the nine-month period ended September 30, 2020, showed that their collective revenues from electronic transactions grew by 11 percent year-on-year from the N120.36bn earned by the financial institutions in 2019.

The income on electronic business of these banks came from Automated Teller Machine transactions, USSD, online transfer, electronic bills payments, Remita, Point of Sale payments, and agency banking, among others.

Some of the banks assessed are Access Bank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Plc, First City Monument Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc, and Sterling Bank Plc.

Others are Jaiz Bank Plc, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, and Wema Bank Plc, Unity Bank Plc, and Stanbic IBTC Plc.

Access Bank’s income from electronic payments more than doubled in 2019 as it grew its electronic business by 105 percent from N18.96bn in the nine months period in 2019 to N38.80bn in the corresponding period in 2020.

FBN’s electronic business income in the nine-month period ended September 2020 was N34.59bn, a marginal increase of 0.5 percent over the N34.42bn revenue in the corresponding period in 2019.

Fees and commissions on digital payments earned by FCMB Plc in the first nine months of 2020 amounted to N6.62bn from N7.98bn the bank earned in the same period in 2019, recording 17 percent year-on-year contraction.

Fidelity Bank Plc recorded e-payments loss of 34 percent in the nine-month period under review as it reported N1.74bn as earnings in 2020 as against N2.63bn in 2019.

With N8.21bn e-payments revenue from January to September 2020, GTB Plc reported a 26 percent reduction in its electronic banking income from N11.04bn earned in the corresponding period in 2019.

Jaiz Bank recorded a contraction of 24 percent on its electronic payment earnings as it reported N406.65m income from January to September 2019 from N307.55m in the same period in 2020.

Stanbic IBTC Plc’s earnings from its electronic products also slumped in the nine-month period under review, recording 15 percent reduction in income from N2.49bn earned in 2019 to N2.12bn in 2020.

For Sterling Bank Plc, its electronic products earned it N4.31bn in the first nine months of 2020, representing 16 percent drop in revenue from N5.11bn the bank generated in the corresponding period in 2019.

Union Bank Plc generated N5.34bn from electronic payments charges in the nine months period under review in 2020, representing a five percent decline as against N5.6bn earned by the bank in the same period in 2019.

UBA Plc’s electronic business income grew by four percent, as it reported N26.71bn as its e-payment earnings from January to September 2019, from N27.87bn in the same period in 2020.