ABUJA — Nigeria’s electronic payments market received a boost, yesterday, with Visa International, world’s largest e-payment service provider, investing $2.8 billion in Valucard Nigeria Plc under a partnership arrangement.
The Chairman (Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and Middle East), Mr. Vivian Bartlett, said at the launching of the partnership agreement between the two companies in Abuja, that the level of investment was the largest to be made in the African region by his company.
He added that the investment which was regarded as an invaluable peg in the partnership represented an eloquent testimony of the company’s confidence in the Nigerian economy which he said held great potentials in the e-payment business. Mr. Bartlett, a former Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, CEO, of South Africa’s First Rand Bank said that with the current tempo of activities in the e-payment system in the country, the introduction of credit card into the Nigerian market was now a matter of time.
The Managing Director, MD, of Valucard, Mr. Kyari Bukar, said that the company posted an impressive recorded with over transactions between 1999 and last Friday, standing at about N131 billion. He assured that with the new partnership with Visa International, Nigerians would be treated to better e-payment products and service delivery from his company.
"This partnership presents greater opportunity to develop and strengthen further, the e-payments system in Nigeria. With this partnership, there would greater and even more efficient service delivery to the banking public, public procurement system and easier trade, while forging growth." he said.
Mr. Bukar observed that the e-payment was still to take hold on the Nigerian populace, saying that he was determined to remain in the vanguard of the campaign for its acceptance by Nigerians in preference to the current cash culture, which has a high risk and cost component.
He therefore called on the Federal Government to assist in putting in place the necessary infrastructure for e-payment in the country, as according to him, the economy would gain immensely from an e-payment system, as demonstrated by the experiences of other countries where e-payment has come to stay.
In her address, the President of Visa International (Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa), Ms. Anne Cobb, said that experiences across 50 countries showed it "was abundantly clear from the findings that there is no doubt that electronic payments and card usage do stimulate economic growth."
"In addition, the move from a cash economy to an electronic payments economy improves the transparency of the financial system, and improves the country’s rating in the eyes of the international financial community as savings increase, investments grow, and the reliance on foreign debt and donor hand-outs decreases.
"Taking unproductive money out of the money supply system in the form of lending is a hallmark of developed economies, and is what many of you are aiming for. Visa International’s many products and services can assist you and the Nigerian administration in accomplishing this goal," she added.
In her view, "every Naira that circulates as hard cash is a missed opportunity to invest, develop and grow. Moreover, the flipside, which I am sure that you as officials will recognise, is that tax revenues are not being gathered to be deployed for better purposes."
