The Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) has launched a mobile payment system called microCash (mCASH).
NIBSS partnered with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), banks and the telecoms companies (Airtel, Etisalat, Globacom and MTN) to provide this Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) payment solution to further deepen financial inclusion.
The banks involved in this initiative include Wema, Zenith, Fidelity, Diamond and Unity bank. It is expected that the other banks will sign up before the end of the year.
mCASH is an innovative solution designed to facilitate low-value retail payments, grow e-payments by providing accessible electronic channels to a wider range of users and to further enhance financial inclusion in Nigeria, by extending e-payment benefits to Payers and Merchants at the bottom of the pyramid where usage of cash has been predominant. Merchants(Sellers) will not bear any cost for Transactions below N10,000
How it operates
Speaking at the launch of mCASH, the Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer NIBSS, Mr. Ade Shonubi said: “With mCASH, the whole intention is to broaden the opportunity for people who today use cash to find a convenient means of making payments. The central bank has been pushing the cashless initiative for a long time and we have seen significant gains but a lot of the people who have benefited so far have the 27 million banking customers.”
