According to figures released by Nigeria's Payments Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA), the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) the value of transactions across PoS in December 2016 was NGN108 billion, but this dropped to NGN91 billion in January this year.

The volume of PoS transactions in December was 8.9 million, but this nosedived to 7.9 million over the same period.

While December holiday shopping season was put forward as a contributing factor, industry experts also believe that the impact of the holiday season would not have been strongly felt if stakeholders had encouraged locals to use PoS channels instead of making cash transactions.

The experts believe the level of adoption of channels outside of Lagos and other cities where PoS-enabled transactions are gaining some traction, remains low.

"The cashless campaign done across the nation focused more on major metropolis than the hinterland. The level of awareness in major cities has fueled more rapid adoption in the major cities. For example, Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt constitute a huge part of all the PoS transaction that are done in Nigeria, though other areas are steadily growing. We have started observing growth and adoption in other cities," said Tunde Ogungbade, Managing Director of Global Accelerex.

Experts have argued that the data on PoS transactions does not entirely capture or reflect the country's cashless payment landscape because of the relevance of other channels including mPOS, mobile, ATMS, web/online, and instant payments.