TheNewsGuru

Tag: PoS

  • “How I use online application to defraud POS operators“ – suspect

    “How I use online application to defraud POS operators“ – suspect

    A 29-year-old commercial motorcyclist, Victor Ukachuckwu, has confessed to using an online application he downloaded from the Internet to defraud Point of Sales (POS) operators in Ondo State.

    Ukachuckwu made the confession while speaking with newsmen after he was paraded by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) on Thursday in Akure.

    The suspect, who claimed to be a commercial motorcyclist, said that he started engaging in the fraud about a month ago.

    “I saw the application online and I learned how to use it which I tried and it worked, though I used it only five times in this month.

    “ I made N55,000 from the fraud business before I was arrested by NSCDC operatives in Akure,” he said.

    While speaking on the incident, Mr Hammed Abodunrin, State Commandant of NSCDC, explained that the suspect had defrauded many POS operators with his tricks.

    According to him, the suspect is in habit of going to POS operators to withdraw money.

    “After he is done with POS operators, he will access his own bank through a firewall application to inform the bank that he made a transaction which failed.

    “He would tell the bank that he had bought certain things and the goods were not delivered to him so he want the transaction cancelled and the money returned to his account. He would go back later and withdraw the reversed amount.

    “That is what he has been doing, this month alone he had done it three times.

    “One POS operator just noticed that each time he had transaction with the suspect, the transaction will be reversed. The means that the POS guy kept losing money, amounting to about N55,000.

    “The suspect was arrested today, we were about to grant him bail and we just felt we should approach his bank and another money just came back into his account, which means that there are so many that will still come back to his account,” the NSCDC chief explained.

    Abodunrin explained that when the command approached the bank, it (bank) claimed to have sent emails to the affected POS operators.

    He said the bank reversed the transaction and paid back the suspect because it did not receive any response from the POS operators it emailed.

    “I am appealing to banks to find faster and better means of communicating with their clients to prevent future criminal acts, ‘’ he said.

    He urged the public to be more vigilant and observant.

  • Happening now: Suspected cultists run rampage in Abuja

    Happening now: Suspected cultists run rampage in Abuja

    …alleged a member was killed

    …as police stay away

    Suspected cultists are on the prowl in Lugbe, a satellite of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) raiding shops and obtaining Point of Sale (POS) machines from shop owners as police stay away from the scene.

    Information reaching TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) indicate that the suspected cultists claimed that a member of their cult group was allegedly murdered on Wednesday night.

    A further check by TNG revealed that all attempts to bring the ugly trend to the police attention failed as the police deliberately stayed away.

    The incident is said to have escalated from Sauka Kahuta, Tundu Wada area of Lugbe largely described as a slum.

     

    Details soon…

  • #ENDSARS: Abuja ATM machines dry up as POS operators make a ‘kill’

    #ENDSARS: Abuja ATM machines dry up as POS operators make a ‘kill’

    By Emman Ovuakporie
    Abuja residents in Kubwa on Saturday morning woke up to discover that all the ATM machines in commercial banks had no cash to dispense.
    TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG ) reports this development as residents of the Abuja satellite town troop to Point of Sale, otherwise known as POS to cash money and had to pay a 100 percent increase on each transaction.
    All the commercial banks located on Gado Nasko road in Kubwa as at 9am on Saturday had no cash to dispense to customers.
    A short tour of the banks by TNG revealed that the ATM machines in Firstbank an old generation bank, Gtb, Union bank, Access bank and a host of others had no cash to dispense.
    This development has led to a sharp increase in commissions charged by POS operators who increased their commissions by 100 percent.
    To cash just 1000naira now in Kubwa attracts 200 naira commission and anything above 10k attracts 300 naira.
    The mobile POS operators have relocated their operations to ATM centres beckoning on customers to use their services as the ATM machines no longer work.
    A security guard in one of the banks who spoke under the condition of anonymity told TNG that “oga we have stopped putting money inside the machines because of ENDSARS.
    “If area boys come here now wetin we fit do so we no de put money again oh go use POS sir.

  • N50 POS charge to be paid by businesses not customers – CBN

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has urged customers not to pay N50 charge to businesses for using point of sale (POS) machines.

    Musa Jimoh, a director in CBN’s payment system management department, explained the apex bank’s merchant charge directive on Monday.

    “The stamp duty is a fee regulated by an act. The CBN doesn’t regulate the stamp duty so we can’t change anything. Stamp duty as it is today has been misinterpreted,” Jimoh clarifies while on a Channels TV programme.

    “Our circular that talks about merchants paying stamp duty according to the law does not say that the stamp duty should be paid by the consumer. That’s actually a misrepresentation of the CBN’S directive.

    “What our directive says is that merchants should pay all necessary charges as regulated by the government agency including stamp duty. When there is an electronic transaction to an account other than savings account and the transaction amount is more than N1,000, you have to pay stamp duty.

    “Our explanation to banks is that we would like the merchants to comply with this directive by ensuring that every single payment customers make to them, the merchants pay the regulated stamp duty of N50.

    “What has happened is that they have transferred this fee, blatantly and openly to the consumers. This is very wrong.

    “No single individual should pay N50 in addition to the cost of the good. Stamp duty is not to be paid by individuals that are consuming the goods and services of the merchant. The merchants who are receiving the money are the ones who are supposed to pay.”

    It had earlier been reported that consumers would pay more for POS transactions after the CBN said stamp duty would be charged on individual transactions rather than previous plans where charges occurred on aggregate transactions.

  • Retailers, merchants recorded 150,777 failed PoS transactions Tuesday

    Retailers, merchants recorded 150,777 failed PoS transactions Tuesday

    Retailers and merchants all over the country experienced 150,777 failed Point of Sales transactions on Tuesday.

    The Point of Sales transactions carried out by retailers and merchants totalled 798,833 at exactly 7.10pm on Tuesday and had a high failure rate of 19 per cent, live updates provided by the NIBSS showed.

    Transactions via PoS terminals peaked at 4.20pm on the same day, recording 14,530 successful and non-successful electronic payments while the lowest number of payments was conducted between 10.50am and 11.20 am.

    In addition, NIP, an online real-time product that facilitates instant payment on an account, as of 7.10pm on Tuesday, recorded a total volume of 2.52 million transactions.

    Analyses of the live electronic payment data indicated a low failure rate of 0.28 per cent, representing 7,187 failed transactions.

    NIP has been adjudged the most preferred platform for electronic payment having grossed more transactions in monetary terms and comprises payments conducted via mobile devices, Unstructured SSD, Internet banking, bank teller, Automated Teller Machines, and vendor merchants, among others.

    The NIP recorded the highest volume of transactions — 39,820 — at 11.30am, while the lowest number of electronic payments was at 2.40am, recording a volume of 1,123.

    Data on the e-payment platform efficiency between February 1 to 22 indicated that the customers contributed the most to failed PoS payments followed by the banks and the processors.

    Within the 22 days under review, the data indicated that the NIBSS platform contributed the least to the failed PoS transactions.

    Stakeholders in the industry in the past had attributed the high failure rate of transactions on the terminals to a poor network.

    To address this challenge, payment systems that use multiple SIM cards, WiFi, or Local Area Network have been developed.

    Commenting on the factors responsible for the failed transactions, the Head, Corporate Communications, NIBSS, Lilian Phido, recently said rejected transactions could be linked to system downtime for specific banks or network issues emanating from a specific service provider.

  • Nigeria’s e-payment transactions hit N56.85trn

    Nigeria’s e-payment transactions hit N56.85trn

    Report from the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), have indicated that Nigeria’s electronic payment (e-payment) services, recorded transactions worth N56.85 trillion from January to September, 2018.

    The report showed an increase of N16.4 trillion when compared to the N40.45 trillion that was recorded in the corresponding period of 2017.

    The report showed that most of the electronic transactions were done through the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP), Point of Sale (PoS), Automated Transfer Machines (ATMs), Mobile Money, Electronic Bills Payment (E-Bills) and Web payments.

    A breakdown of the report showed that ATMs transactions grew from N4.61 trillion in 2017 to N4.76 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2018.

    Also, the volume of transactions on ATMs under the period in review grew from 560.86 million in 2017, to 650.06 million in 2018.

    The report showed a rise of about N635 billion in the use of POS machines to carry out payments by Nigerians.

    Under the review period, 98.73 million transactions worth N975 billion were carried out using POS in 2017, while in 2018, the volume grew to 196.83 million, valued at N1.61 trillion.

    Similarly, the volume of transactions carried out by Nigerians, using mobile money rose from N795.18 billion in 2017, to N1.22 trillion as at Sept, 2018.

    Also, using the web payment channel, the total value of transactions under the review period rose from N129.24 billion in 2017, to N183.07 billion in 2018.

    However, the value of such transactions on e-bill payments, which allowed customers to pay utility bills such as power, cable and so on online, declined from N420.73 billion in 2017 to N370 billion in 2018.

    Meanwhile, a Financial analyst, Dr Patricia Auta, has said that the NIBSS report showed an increased awareness and use of technology by individuals and businesses in the country.

    Auta urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to intensify efforts on cashless economy, especially in states, to further grow the electronic payment space.

    She also advised banks to stay competitive and drive growth by providing innovative alternate payment channels to customers.

     

  • Benin residents experience miserable Christmas

    Benin residents experience miserable Christmas

    Benin residents experienced a miserable 2018 Christmas as long queues surfaced at bank cash points known as the Automated Teller Machines (ATM) and Points of Sale (PoS) in Benin City, Edo capital, according to checks.

    Most of the machines had failed to dispense cash during the Yuletide with scores of residents returning home disappointed.

    Some of the respondents who spoke in separate interviews with NAN on Wednesday described the situation as frustrating and unfortunate.

    According to them, most of the machines in the city have not been dispensing cash since Friday night, a situation which has resulted in spending long hours in the queue at the few ATMs that were working.

    Mr Peter Ojo, who said he was unable to get cash from the machines he visited on Friday night, regretted that the situation had not changed as at Christmas morning.

    “It is a very `funny’ thing that the banks did not make contingency plans for a period like this,” he told NAN.

    For Mr Osagie Mathew, he said had been in the queue since 6.00 a.m. on Wednesday waiting to cash money for the Christmas celebration.

    He said: “I have been to more than six ATM machines of different banks but the same thing applies to all: unable to dispense cash.

    “It is like a deliberate plan by all the banks to deprive their customers of cash withdrawals during holiday.

    “What we are experiencing now was just what happened during the last Christmas and Easter celebrations where we had to contend with the failure of ATMs and fuel scarcity.”

    A journalist, Osagie Omorogieva, said he trekked several kilometres to Akpakpava road, moving from one machine to another.

    “I tell you, it was all a futile effort as I could not get any of the machines that was dispensing cash in the long stretch of Akpakpava road.

    “The only two ATM machines at Diamond Bank and Union Bank that were dispensing cash was like a market place,” he said.

    NAN reports that the situation is not different at the ATM machines on both Airport road and Sapele road.

    A security guard at a new generation bank on Sapele road, who did not want his name in print, appealed to customers to exercise patience, saying the officials of the bank are already addressing the challenges to restore normalcy.

    “I’m sure the people responsible will come and look into this problem before the end of today.

    “I can tell you that the rush for cash by customers is largely responsible for this problem. But it will be sorted out soon,” he promised.

    Apart from the ATMs, most PoS centres were unable to attend to their customers’ needs due to network failure.

    A motorist, Mr John Omoruyi who described the situation as “appalling”, said he went to NNPC mega station with the hope of using their PoS to buy fuel but he could not get the transaction through owing to network problems.

    “They had network problem and I couldn’t buy fuel.

    “This is not just peculiar to the filling station as my friend also had a similar experience in one of the supermarkets where he was unable to make purchases due to the failure of PoS.”

     

  • Gov. Wike bags international POS award

    Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike has been nominated for the prestigious International Sports Press Association-Africa (AIPS) Africa Power of Power (POS) Award.

    In a nomination letter to the Rivers State Governor, dated 26th March, 2018, President AIPS Africa, Mitchell Obi said that Governor Wike is being recognised for his remarkable fidelity in raising the bar of sports matters and using sports as a catalyst for development.

    The AIPS Africa also recognised the role of Governor Wike in Nigeria through the use of sports as a tool to effectively engage the youth population in the continent.

    The letter read: “The decoration of this badge of honour will take place at the continental meeting in Brussels on the 8th/9th of May 2018”.

    The AIPS Africa also stated that Governor Wike is expected to deliver a lecture on the topic: “Peace and Progress through Sports in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria ” to the full house of the 94 year old International Sports Press Association (AIPS) comprising no fewer than 108 countries.

    While congratulating the Rivers State Governor, the AIPS Africa President praised his commitment to the growth of sports in the continent.

    It will be recalled that Rivers State recently hosted the African Wrestling Championship considered the very best.

     

  • Banks must settle customers’ complaints within 2 weeks – CBN

    Banks must settle customers’ complaints within 2 weeks – CBN

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed that banks and other financial institutions must settle customers’ complaints on issues of overcharge, unauthorised deductions and other matters within two weeks.

    Mr Tajudeen Ahmed, The CBN Head of Complaints Management Division, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja.

    He said the CBN would ensure that bank customers received redress on issues of excess charges or unauthorised withdrawal.

    Ahmed reiterated the apex bank’s commitment to eradicate short payment of interests and end the culture of excess and arbitrary charges.

    According to him, the CBN has since issued a circular, which could be found on the Its website showing all legitimate bank charges.

    He explained that any charge outside what is contained in the circular was not allowed and should not be charged.

    “The consumer protection department issued guidelines to banks dated August 16, 2011, directing all banks and other financial institutions to resolve all customer complaints within two weeks of receipt of that complaint.

    “Before the expiration of that complaint, the financial institution is expected to be engaging the customer on a continuous basis to update him or her on the status of the complaint.

    “If it is not resolved within the deadline given, then such a person is encouraged to draw the attention of Central Bank of Nigeria to find solution to that complaint,” he said.

    Ahmed advised customers with unresolved complaints to contact the CBN by writing to the Director Consumer Protection Department or send an email to cbd@cbn.gov.ng.

    He also advised disgruntled bank customers to visit any branch of the CBN closest to them to lay their complaints.

    “The CBN continually engages the banks to find out if their conducts and practices are fair to their customers in order to stimulate people’s confidence in the banking system.

    “Non-adherence to that normally results to regulatory sanctions as the case may be,” he said.

    Ahmed faulted banks for setting a limit on ATM withdrawals to get customers to make several withdrawals to cash large sums.

    “I have also observed and noted this. Don’t forget that at the beginning, it wasn’t like this. Over time, we started having this problem.

    “One of the reasons is that the quantum of N500 denomination is much more than that of N1,000 denomination.

    “When we approached the banks about these problems, they said that the machines become easily faulty when it is set to dispense up to N30, 000 to N40, 000 units.

    “However, CBN has directed that the machines that allow payment of up to N30,000 to N50,000 should be installed.

    “This is still ongoing. The Banking and Payment Department of the CBN is championing it,” he said.

    Also, the Head of Consumer Protection Division, Mrs Hadija Kasim, said bank customers could also avoid some of these issues by inculcating the habit of cashless policy.

    She reminded the public that there were various methods to make payments rather than carrying cash.

    “Let’s not forget that ATM cards can also be used on Point of Sale (POS) terminals.

    “We are encouraging people that unless it is absolutely necessary, they should reduce the carriage of cash. Cashless transactions are more convenient, safer and you will avoid the problem of overcharges,” she said.

    Kasim also advised bank consumers to use bank transfer channels for transactions in cases where sellers do not have POS.

     

  • Banks raise dollar spending limit on Pos, online transactions by 900%

    Banks raise dollar spending limit on Pos, online transactions by 900%

    Indications emerge on Tuesday that commercial banks have raised customers’ international dollar spending limit on overseas Point of Sale (PoS) and online card transactions by 900 per cent.

    The policy shift is expected to help travellers pay their hotel bills, make reservations and other transactions using their debit cards.

    The decision to increase the spending limit followed improved dollar liquidity in the market triggered by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)-sustained interventions.

    The interventions have yielded results and reduced foreign currency pressure on many lenders.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that the CBN has pumped over $6 billion into key segments of the market in the last four months, an initiative that has stabilized the naira against the dollar.

    Some of the funds have helped banks meet retail demand for Personal Travel Allowances (PTA), Business Travel Allowances (BTA), medical needs and school fees payment abroad.

    Also, the Investors’ and Exporters’ FX introduced on April 24 to attract foreign investors and boost the supply of dollars has traded around $3.83 billion since it was established. It has also impacted on naira’s stability and improved dollar liquidity in the market, helping banks to review their dollar spending positions.

    In a report to customers titled: Upward Review of the International Spending Limit on Your Naira MasterCard’ GTBank raised monthly dollar spending limit on naira MasterCard from $100 to $1,000 representing 900 per cent increase. The bank said: “We write to inform you of the monthly spending limits currently applicable when using your GTBank Naira MasterCard for International payments”.

    The bank said customers could access the fund through Point of Sale (POS) and other online channels. The bank however, said international cash withdrawal was still restricted.

    Many of the lenders, at the height of forex scarcity, pegged monthly transactions on PoS and online transactions using cards at $100, British Pounds Sterling 90, Euro 130 and Canadian Dollars 360.

    Stanbic IBTC Bank, United Bank for Africa, Access Bank, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria (StanChart) and GTBank last October, announced the suspension of their overseas Automated Teller Machine card services. Also suspended by the banks were all foreign currency-denominated transactions, including those conducted on PoS machines and online.

    The naira was then exchanging at N310 to the dollar in the official market and N450 to the dollar in the parallel market. The naira has since appreciated at both official and parallel markets. It was yesterday exchanging at N306 to dollar in the official market and N368 to the dollar in the parallel market.

    During the dollar crisis era, many banks encouraged travellers to open dollar accounts, which have no spending limit. Such cards are issued by the banks on domiciliary accounts funded directly by customers.

     

    Confirming the rising dollar liquidity in the economy, Fitch Ratings said Nigerian banks’ ability to access dollar has improved considerably since the CBN introduced a foreign exchange “window” aimed at investors and exporters.

    It admitted the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Rate Fixing (NAFEX) mechanism, commonly referred to as the “Investors’ and Exporters’ FX Window”, is boosting foreign currency supply and the flow of dollar liquidity into the banking system.

    It said improved access to dollar means that liquidity pressures have, for now, eased for Fitch-rated banks.