Fraud: Customers Shun PoS, Return To Banks’ ATM, Other Channels

LAGOS JUNE 15TH (NEWSRANGERS)-The usual high patronage of Point of Sale (PoS) ser­vices in the country is in reverse trend as bank cus­tomers now resort to Au­tomated Teller Machines (ATM) and other channels like online banking, Un­structured Supplementa­ry Service Data (USSD), among others.

In the heat of COVID-19, last year, banks and other financial companies were restricted in receiving cus­tomers as a way to prevent the spread of the pandem­ic.

 The development triggered the proliferation of PoS ser­vice operations in the country for easy access to cash. Despite the charges for the services, which were more than those of banks’ ATM services, many Nigerians thronged the PoS service centres for their trans­actions.

However, in recent times, there have been reports of fraudulent activities being or­chestrated by scammers who fleece unsuspecting customers of their cash through deceptive methods through PoS.

The unsavory #EndSARS campaign which caused hav­oc to some banks’ ATMs with cash looted, boosted PoS ser­vice patronage by most Nige­rians.

A recent report revealed how some PoS operators and even those who pretend to be customers waiting for trans­actions would feign making phone calls while distracting genuine customers’ attention to take pictures of their ATM cards’ details.

Speaking with Daily Inde­pendent, Hassan Adekoya, a PoS operator, disclosed that there is low patronage of PoS services by customers. He said the cause is partly linked to relaxation of COVID-19 re­strictions.

“The business is not prof­itable as before. I discovered that many of my customers now use banks’ ATMs which were not very functional be­fore, especially last year when the pandemic was still scary. I am bothered because I am not making the type of profit I used to make. The consolation I have is that I have other items I sell along the PoS business and I didn’t employ anybody that I am paying salary,” he explained.

Investigations by Daily Inde­pendent revealed that some PoS operators are already closing shops because of low patron­age. The development is becom­ing a replica of what phone call business centres used to be at the early stage of Global Sys­tem for Mobile (GSM) commu­nications in Nigeria.

To attest to the apathy some people are now having toward PoS service, the month of May, 2021, recorded a transaction de­cline of 0.8 percent.

The recorded drop is for second consecutive month. Month-on-month (MoM), it fell to N503.96 billion in May from N507.9 billion in April.

The latest data from Nigeria Interbank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) shows the value of transactions through PoS terminals declined marginal­ly by 0.76 percent (N3.9 billion) in May.

Daily Independent

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Posted by on Jun 15 2021. Filed under Business, National. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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