Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said that the Electronic Payment Financial Incentives Scheme (EFIS) Efficiency Award is aimed to enhance competition among operators in the electronic payment industry.

Meanwhile Guaranty Trust Bank emerged the leader in the maiden edition of the award winning in six categories. The bank won six of the 11 bank based award. These include Cashless Instant Payment; Cashless PoS issued cards; Instant Payment Transaction Efficiency; Electronic Reference; Automated Direct Debit Mandate; and Customer Experience Satisfaction award.

Zenith Bank followed with two awards namely Cashless Bulk Payment Award and PoS Transaction Acquirer.

Speaking at the award ceremony held in Lagos on Friday, Deputy Governor, Operations, CBN, Alhaji Suleiman Barau said that the awards indicate that GTBank and Zenith Bank have done well and other banks should emulate them.

 He said, “The two banks have done very well. We like all the banks to emulate what the three or four banks have done. What the efficiency awards seek to do is to encourage competition so that next year you will see more banks competing and that is the essence of award ceremony like this.”

He said that the award was designed to address apathy to electronic payment channels, which greeted the cashless policy.

He said, “In 2012 when the cashless policy was introduced, basically to reduce the cash intensity in the economy, and by implication to encourage electronic payments, with a lot of e-channels to drive the policy, these include PoS, multifunctional ATMs, internet banking, NIBSS electronic funds transfer (NEF), NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) that I am very proud about, mobile payments, and others.

However, the level of merchant apathy was high thereby inhibiting adoption. This gave birth to Electronic Payments Incentive Scheme (EPIS) Efficiency Awards with the objective of recognizing, encouraging all stakeholders in the payment space in Nigeria.

 Other objectives of the programme include the rewarding and appreciative efforts in adoption as well as usage of all channels including those that promote financial inclusion. Some of the components of the programme include the reduction of merchant service charge from 1.25 percent to 0.75 percent or a maximum of N1,200″.

In his opening remarks, Managing Director/Chief Executive, Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), Mr. Adebisi Shonubi said that the award is about payment and efficient payment.

 He said, “We are very specific in the award here, it is about payment and efficient payment and I am not sure you will find too many customers complaining. What we are hoping this award could bring out is healthy rivalry amongst the banks.

We picked the top three. I am sure if we had picked the top five, many more banks would have been mentioned. Almost all the banks showed improvement we sent report to their chief executives on monthly basis to show their performance. It is not all the banks that could be mentioned but we hope next year, it will be different set of banks taking up the challenge.”