For years, running a shop in Nigeria meant living with cash. Customers came in from morning till closing with naira notes, neat or crumpled, and the day ended with the owner deciding where to hide the day’s yield. Shops became soft targets, because robbers knew that however slow sales had been, a shop would always have money stuffed somewhere. Owners who banked it instead lost hours in the queue, counting the sales they were missing.
Two shocks broke this habit. The first was COVID-19, contact became a risk, and in retail, payment is the most frequent contact there is. Transfers and mobile apps took the weight. It sparked a permanent shift: EFInA’s survey insights show that digital financial service usage stood at 34 percent in 2020, marking the beginning of an era where digital channels would quickly become the retail standard.
The second shock was heavier. During the naira redesign of early 2023, the notes were in limited circulation. ATM queues ended in nothing, POS agents charged what they liked, and the roadside pepper seller who had held the line on cash or nothing began calling out an account number. NIBSS recorded 1.1 billion electronic transactions in March 2023 alone, an all-time high. By year end, usage of digital financial services had reached 45 per cent of adults and electronic transfers were worth ₦600 trillion, marking a 55 percent increase in just twelve months.
