Nigerians spend about N2.5 million within hours to celebrate Valentine' Day on Thursday.
According to data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) Instant Pay, bank customers in the country carried out about 2.5 million instant pay transactions on its Instant Pay Platform on Thursday, which was Valentine celebration.
Valentine is an annual love feast celebrated by individuals across the world to celebrate love and affections with their loved ones.
As shopping for gift items and visit to entertainment spots in the country to celebrate the day increased, online payment of bills via NIP hit exactly 2,500,177 transactions as of 7.20pm on Thursday.
Analyses of the data indicated that a low failure rate of 0.62 per cent was recorded on the platform, with customers experiencing a total of 15,588 failed transactions.
The data showed that funds transfer formed the bulk of the volume of the NIP transactions.
NIP has been adjudged the most preferred platform for electronic payment having grossed more transactions in monetary terms than PoS and e-Bills Payment over the years.
Data from NIBSS showed that PoS transactions carried out by merchants and retailers in the country were 878,336 as of 7.20 pm on Valentine's Day.
The data indicated that transactions on PoS had a high failure rate of 13.85 per cent as the volume of failed transactions on the terminals stood at 121,635 at the same time.
NIP recorded the highest volume of transactions – 38,211 – at 4.30pm, while electronic payment on PoS peaked also at 4.30pm, recording a volume of 16,715.
Data on the e-payment platform efficiency showed the destination bank for electronic payment contributed the most to failed NIP transactions between January 18 to February 8, 2019.
Within the 21 days under review, the data indicated that the NIBSS platform had not in any way contributed to the failed NIP transactions while the contribution of the customer to failed transactions was minimal.