CBN, NIBSS, banks on partnership to roll out new domestic payment card

Set national fusion centre to take cybercrimes
Apex bank paid an N42 billion rebate to non-oil exporters in Q3

The Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) is working with the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), as well as the Bankers Committee to roll out a new card scheme to scale up the electronic payment system across the country and increase efficiency in the ecosystem.

While details of its functionality are still sketchy, The Chief Executive of NIBSS, Premier Oiwoh, told the media yesterday that the innovation to be known as National Domestic Card Scheme would reduce card operating costs, drive acceptability and efficiency of the cashless society, reduce cash dependency among others.

Speaking at a media briefing on the outcome of the Bankers Committee meeting held yesterday, Oiwoh said different credit, debit, virtual, identity and non-interest cards would be layered on the system by different integrating entities.

“The scheme is the brainchild of the CBN, which is being deployed to improve the payment landscape across the ecosystem in Nigeria. Among the propositions is to help drive acceptance and efficiency, reduce the operating costs of card systems in the country and provision unique and reliable services,” he said.

He promised that charges would be low as its services would cost local as against hard currencies even as several value-adds would be explored to create robust local content. He added that the card, which will be a barcode, would increase the sovereignty of the data.

The Committee members also revealed that the CBN would work with banks to set up a national fusion centre to help improve the safety of the payment system. The centre is expected to provide an information-sharing platform to counter cyber-attacks.

Briefing the media, Managing Director of Citibank Nigeria, Iretiogo Samuel-Ogbu, said the proposed cybersecurity centre “is in line with global best practices”. She would bring professionals together to proffer solutions to cyber threats regularly.

The centre is to be temporarily hosted in CBN while the source of the promoter for a permanent location.

Samuel-Ogbu also disclosed that N1.28 billion was repatriated in the third quarter on account of the implementation of the RT200 FX Programme. According to her, $870 million was sold through the Investors’ and Exporters’ (I &E) window. She added that N42 billion was paid out in the quarter as rebates to non-oil exporters.

It would be recalled that the CBN had started the implementation of the RT200 FX Programme with the intent of raising the volume of FX earned through processed and semi-processed non-oil exports.

As part of the initiative, there is a rebate leg to incentivize non-oil export. Exporters enjoy a rebate of N65 for every dollar of non-oil export proceeds sold to third parties and N35 for every dollar repatriated through the official window for their own use.