• NIBSS puts active bank accounts at 320m
Despite increased network glitches across networks in the first three months of 2025, electronic payment transactions, across various platforms, rose by 22 per cent to N284.9 trillion in the first quarter of 2025.
Latest data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) showed that within the same period in 2024, the transaction value was N234.4 trillion.
These electronic payment transactions cut across Internet banking, mobile apps, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), POS, ATM, among others.
Indeed, from January to March, Nigerians performed transactions worth N100 trillion as of the first month of 2025 over the platforms. In February, the value of NIP transactions stood at N88.8 trillion, while the value jumped again to N96 trillion in March.
NIBSS revealed that the volume of transactions across all the electronic platforms stood at 792 million in January, dropped to 687.5 million in February and rose slightly to 735.5 million in March.
According to the NIBSS, the rise in e-payment transaction value and volume is attributable to several factors, including the recent cash scarcity, which forced many businesses to start accepting transfers and other forms of electronic payments from their customers.
Industry analysts also believe that the growing influence of fintechs in the Nigerian market is fueling an increase in account openings by individuals and small businesses, thus adding to the number of performing transactions electronically.
Meanwhile, the NIBSS revealed that the number of active bank accounts in Nigeria rose to 320 million in March this year. At the end of 2024, the NIBSS data showed that total active bank accounts in the country stood at 311.6 million.
Accordingly, it means that about 8.4 million new accounts were either opened or reactivated in the first quarter of 2025.The NIBSS report further revealed that the number of inactive or dormant bank accounts in the country stood at 33.3 million at the end of March. By that, it showed a 70 per cent increase in the number of abandoned accounts quarter-on-quarter as the figure stood at 19.5 million at the end of 2024.
An inactive or dormant account is a bank account that has had no activity on it for 12 months. Banks convert accounts with no activity for a long period into inoperative or dormant accounts to curtail the risk of fraud.
According to the NIBSS, the number of bank accounts that have been closed stood at 29.4 million. If the number of active bank accounts in the country as of March 2025 is to be considered, there appeared to still be a very wide gap between the number of accounts and the number of Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) registered. The total registered BVNs by account owners stood at 66.2 million as of July 2025.
To further boost the e-payment sub-sector, the NIBSS has unveiled a new payment solution called National Payment Stack (NPS). Some of the features of the new payment platform include real-time transactions and instant settlements, advanced payment messaging using ISO 20022, bulk and single payments on one rail, more efficient dispute management system, KYC verification via BVN, RC Number or TIN, request-to-Pay and Direct Debit capabilities, multi-currency readiness and cross-border potential, sandbox-enabled integration for partners in as little as 48 hours, improved fraud management and risk rating capabilities, among others.
