Can we say we are truly cashless in Nigeria?

[Crypto_Timothy]

You know recently, the idea of a cashless economy has been pushed strongly in Nigeria and we have seen digital payments, mobile transfers, POS machines and banking apps become common and common and alot of people now move money without touching physical cash. On paper, it looks like we are gradually moving away from cash and into a fully digital system.

But then when you step into many local markets, the reality feels different. I just got back from the market and this topic just cane to my mind. A lot of these traders still prefer physical cash, some don’t trust bank transfers, infact now they have POS mahcines agent on standby the market that they will refer you to go and redraw before coming back or they call the POS agent to you. I cant just fully say network issue make digital payments unreliable because in that scenario my network was good, if it wasn't the POS machine won't have worked but of course i can understand it adds to the reason they still just prefer cash.

In many cases, if you don’t have cash in hand, buying simple things can become difficult. So it raises a question, are we really becoming cashless or is the cashless idea only working in certain parts of the economy? What has been your experience when paying in markets or small businesses?

[The Founding Titan]

You know recently, the idea of a cashless economy has been pushed strongly in Nigeria and we have seen digital payments, mobile transfers, POS machines and banking apps become common and common and alot of people now move money without touching physical cash. On paper, it looks like we are gradually moving away from cash and into a fully digital system.

But then when you step into many local markets, the reality feels different. I just got back from the market and this topic just cane to my mind. A lot of these traders still prefer physical cash, some don’t trust bank transfers, infact now they have POS mahcines agent on standby the market that they will refer you to go and redraw before coming back or they call the POS agent to you. I cant just fully say network issue make digital payments unreliable because in that scenario my network was good, if it wasn't the POS machine won't have worked but of course i can understand it adds to the reason they still just prefer cash.

In many cases, if you don’t have cash in hand, buying simple things can become difficult. So it raises a question, are we really becoming cashless or is the cashless idea only working in certain parts of the economy? What has been your experience when paying in markets or small businesses?

I'm not sure what you are expecting going to meet an old woman selling bitter leaf in the market and expecting her to accept transfer, the whole cashless policy talk started when the CBN decided to push all the all notes out of circulation, it plunged this country into some kind of a monetary darkage and they realized that the strategy wouldn't work so instead, stop printing the old design and let the new take over with time, even countries with better economy than ours still use cash so why are you expecting us to become fully cashless, people have taken more to mobile transfer now after the events of 2023 but that doesn't mean we've abandoned the physical cash.

[Inior]

The case with the market women isn't all about having good transfer network or not. When this local scam was everywhere one of their major target where uneducated people who have only but little idea on how this banking system works however a lot of them where scammed and few who escaped the hands of this scammers learnt the lesson from their neighbors experience. So this is one of the reasons you find alot of market women kicking against the idea of transfer. And again people do fake transfers even with their presence so to be on the safer they just happen to choose not to accept transfer and I like it that way. E better pass to commot body than to be a fool for 5 times.

[EarnOnVictor]

I don't think Nigeria or any country in the world wants to go 100% cashless. The electronic risks will always be present, just like the ones you cited, which are just a few examples. However, this is not the reason Nigeria can't get a pass market in this aspect. We deserve kudos for what is happening now, and the CBN, banks, and Fintechs have done so well.

You just need to admit that there is nothing perfect, particularly in technology. There may be technical issues sometimes, and some people might be adamant about using physical cash, especially the older generation. For these, I believe the whole idea is to drastically reduce dependence on physical cash, which invariably reduces printing costs, rather than to totally eliminate physical cash or rely solely on electronic transactions. That will be even more dangerous.

[Dex_master25]

You know recently, the idea of a cashless economy has been pushed strongly in Nigeria and we have seen digital payments, mobile transfers, POS machines and banking apps become common and common and alot of people now move money without touching physical cash. On paper, it looks like we are gradually moving away from cash and into a fully digital system.

But then when you step into many local markets, the reality feels different. I just got back from the market and this topic just cane to my mind. A lot of these traders still prefer physical cash, some don’t trust bank transfers, infact now they have POS mahcines agent on standby the market that they will refer you to go and redraw before coming back or they call the POS agent to you. I cant just fully say network issue make digital payments unreliable because in that scenario my network was good, if it wasn't the POS machine won't have worked but of course i can understand it adds to the reason they still just prefer cash.

In many cases, if you don’t have cash in hand, buying simple things can become difficult. So it raises a question, are we really becoming cashless or is the cashless idea only working in certain parts of the economy? What has been your experience when paying in markets or small businesses?

You are right in your observation because many of the traders in the real world market place in this country, have been victims of fake transfers even though not all cases are same, but some dont get alerts or get delayed alerts and it is a concern for them.
There's also a lot of illiterates and those who don't have bank accounts in the marketplace and they prefer cash more than transfer too.
Infact, there is no place in this country where you get to use transportation and expect to pay with transfers, hence why we aren't fully cashless no matter how much it is advised or pushed by the government.

[Kryptonite788]

In many cases, if you don’t have cash in hand, buying simple things can become difficult.

this is nothing but the truth ,and it happens like this for various reasons.most People are not familiar with digital payment method so they opt for cash payment only ,to avoid being ripped of their money. many market women don’t even know how to operate their phone not to talk of using a bank app so they would rather use cash only payment method because that’s what they are more familiar with and let’s not forget the unnecessary bank charges that come with making and receiving bank transfers,most people cannot cope with it because the little profit they’re supposeto be making is being watered down by unnecessary charges .

[Hatchy]

In many cases, if you don’t have cash in hand, buying simple things can become difficult. So it raises a question, are we really becoming cashless or is the cashless idea only working in certain parts of the economy? What has been your experience when paying in markets or small businesses?

You should know that cash or wired payment are both alternatives payment systems that should work hand in hand, not separate. Anyone can choose not to receive payment in cash but transfer, vise versa. The idea is to offer your customers flexibility while making payments, so the they don't pass you by and go to the next customer for their purchases. Most market women use those cash to pay for contributions, which they pay daily and the my consider the fact that they as well might need the cash as deposit. Some have been victims of fake transfers or cases where a customers transfer is stuck and they don't want to look bad and allow them to go, only to realise that the money never arrived. So yeah, they both are working hand in hand compared to what we had then , when we only had cash as the only widely used payment method..

[Ishicryptic]

The answer is NO we are not yet fully into a cashless society yet, the old generation will still prefer to buy and sell with physical cash because it is what they have been using for transactions all their lives so it won't be easy for them to go totally digital with spending and receiving money. Before we can have a total cashless society in Nigeria, is when the old generations who are used to physical cash have passed on, I believe that before 20 years we will hardly see physical cash. It is already happening because the rate of physical cash in circulation has started to reduce compared to years ago, almost everybody now has a mobile bank app to do their transactions online.

Most of these market women who rejects online money transfers and will ask you to do online transfers with POS vendors then pay them with physical cash are doing business with the POS operators. At the end of the day they will give the POS operators the physical cash for little commissions and the POS operators will pay money into their accounts. The next day same routine will happen again they will reject online transfers again and ask you to do POS and give them physical cash.

[NurseHub]

The world is in a digital economy and Nigeria is not excepted on this however, when you live in a part of Nigeria that is quiet developed you find it difficult to see someone reject transfers or not having a POS for transactions that wouldn't require cash, but in the rural part of Nigeria you find people still complaining of difficulties in recieving not because they don't know that they will actually receive the money because they still do not trust the process of digital business they seem to complain too much.

[Umulala-alala]

There are many reasons why some people prefer cash even when the amount is big and needed to be transfer, due to the high rate of scam in the country you can easily be sent a fake alert unless is person that you truly know, also there are businesses that the transaction required cash but not in all cases those who sell palm oil sometime prefer taking physical cash and also most of those who sell sand, some old women in the market also want cash because most of the don't even have an account and also you can't buy biscuits of 50 naira and think you can make transfer.

[Crypto_Timothy]

You are right in your observation because many of the traders in the real world market place in this country, have been victims of fake transfers even though not all cases are same, but some dont get alerts or get delayed alerts and it is a concern for them.
There's also a lot of illiterates and those who don't have bank accounts in the marketplace and they prefer cash more than transfer too.
Infact, there is no place in this country where you get to use transportation and expect to pay with transfers, hence why we aren't fully cashless no matter how much it is advised or pushed by the government.

Exactly, now im wondering if we can ever truly go cashless because the these traders are the basic point of transactions for most Nigerians, we can't keep using the excuse of "they are uneducated", because they can be educated, infact most of them do transfers to their chidren or relatives in general though privately, but omo the question really, can we ever go cashless in this country?

[Bitcoin.com97]

Yes, we can say we are cashless in Nigeria to an extent,  but not fully cashless, myself I don’t go out with cash , unless I’m going with public transport, you don’t expect me to transfer 300 to keke driver, but if I’m going by bolt , I pay with transfer, some supermarket in my area don’t accept cash is either you transfer or pay through pos, even if it’s #150 stuff that you bought, it happened to me , I was tasty , so the supermarket in my neighborhood has steady light, it’s assume that there water is chill , I had piece with me , I got the water, so went to pay I was told They don’t take cash , I should transfer or pay with card.

Most market women prefer cash especially those local market , you don’t expect an  elderly woman selling vegetables or garri to take transfer, most of them are not learned or used to this new method of payment, they prefer physical cash so it can be used to settle one or two things for them , even if you creat an account for most the elderly woman , it’s only how yo withdraw that they know , once they get to the pos they hand over card , even tell the pos attendant their pin because it may be written down in a paper , so we are not fully cashless in Nigeria.

[cxtreenal]

Cashless finance is a modern system where you can use it for goods and services, it can be by transferring money from a bank account or through any other cashless method. But with modernization the previous system has to be retained because during an emergency you may not have internet access or cash transactions in the local market are the only means of exchange.

Don't forget that in the centralized society you live in, the value of a piece of paper printed is very high. And for this piece of paper you have to work hard day after day and meet your needs with the money you earn and save for the future. You cannot build a separate system outside this social system because fiat is important for goods and services. And fiat is important to enter decentralized investment.