Customers of eight commercial banks paid N119.3 billion as service charges for electronic business (e-biz) transactions in the first quarter of 2024 (Q1’24).
This represents a 65 percent year-on-year (YoY) increase when compared with N72.22 billion the customers paid in Q1’23.
The eight banks are Guaranty Trust Bank, GTB (N11.26 billion) , Zenith Bank (N19.9 billion), Access Bank (N33.28 billion), Fidelity Bank (N1.31 billion), Stanbic IBTC (N1.07 billion), United Bank for Africa, UBA, (N44.35 billion), FCMB Group (N5.08 billion) and Wema Bank (N3.01 billion).
The banks’ Q1’24 financial statement showed that account maintenance fees paid by the bank customers during the period also increased YoY by 18.6 percent to N60.6 billion from N51.09 billion in Q1’23.
Zenith Bank earned the highest fees for account maintenance valued at N16.89 billion, followed by Access Bank with N13.8 billion and Guaranty Trust Bank, GTB, with N9.4 billion.
Others include: UBA (N9.34 billion), Fidelity Bank (4.94 billion), FCMB Group (N2.73 billion) , Stanbic IBTC (N1.5 billion) and Wema Bank (N1.46 billion).
Further details showed that the total net fees and commission income of the eight banks stood at N341.71 billion in Q1’24, rising YoY by 81.6 percent from N188.14 billion in the corresponding period of 2023.
According to the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) e-payment transaction data for Q1’24, the value of electronic payment transactions grew YoY by 89 percent to N257.73 trillion in the first quarter of 2024 (Q1’24) from N136.2 trillion in Q1’23.
Similarly, the volume of electronic payment transactions grew YoY by 8.3 percent to 2.98 billion in Q1’24 from 2.75 billion in Q1’23.
NIBSS Industry Bank Account data for Q1’24 also showed that the number of active bank accounts stood at 219.64 million as at March 2024.