The Nigeria InterBank Settlement System (NIBSS) Instant Pay platform yesterday recorded over 278,966 failed electronic payment transactions in the country.
As at 5.40 p.m. on Sallah Day, the platform recorded a total volume of 5.43 million transactions, according to live updates provided by the NIBSS.
Analysis of the live electronic payment data indicated that a failure rate of 5.15 per cent was recorded on the platform.
The statistics also showed that PoS transactions carried out by retailers in the country also had a high failure rate of 11.41 per cent as of 5.40pm on the same day, out of a total transaction volume of 569,838.
The live updates showed that the volume of failed transactions on PoS stood at 65,064 at the same time.
On Tuesday, being the first day of the Eid-El-Kabir celebration, the NIP recorded the highest volume of transactions at 105,849 by 12.20pm, while electronic payment on PoS peaked at 10.10am, recording a volume of 10,721.
Data on the e-payment platform efficiency showed the destination banks for electronic payment contributed the most to failed online transactions.
Commenting on the factors responsible for the failed transactions, the Head, Corporate Communications, NIBSS, Lilian Phido, said that unsuccessful transactions could be traced to network issues in the banks, insufficient funds in the customers’ accounts or problems on the NIBSS platform.
She stated, “There are many parties associated with a typical transaction. The bank, customers and the NIBSS are involved. If the customer doesn’t have money in his or her account, or the account is lean, the transaction will fail.
“If the bank is having network issues, the transaction will fail at that moment. If the NIBSS platform is down, then the platform will not work in all the banks, not just one bank. This is very rare because it means the platform will not work in any of the banks.”
