By Chinwendu Obienyi
As the impact of COVID-19 left Nigeria’s economy devastated due to the lockdown of several sectors , economic activities were also made to shrink.
This consequently led to a number of sectors underperforming while insecurity and hardship for households, severely impacted government’s finances.
Specifically, due to restrictions on movement and travel, many of the country’s mostly informal 41.5 million Micro Enterprises (96 per cent of all businesses in the country) which account for more than 80 per cent of total employment, had to either close or scale back operations.
It was no surprise that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) globally affected by the development could not weather the storm.
According to recent research studies on the effect of the lockdown, 94.3 per cent of SMEs in Nigeria recorded negative results during the pandemic principally in the areas of cash-flow, sales and revenue.
Notwithstanding however, the pandemic led to increasing use of the digital/technology. “We saw increased use in Zoom, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Wechat apps amongst others. This meant that meetings, businesses or social activities were performed on the aforementioned apps.”
In the same vein, transactions in banking halls were halted as customers migrated to the use of alternative channels app or use the USSD code for whatever transactions they wanted to make. As a result, the total volume of 2,160,436,659 transactions valued at N263.78 trillion were recorded in second quarter (Q2) of 2020 as data on Electronic Payment Channels.
Furthermore, online transfer transactions dominated the volume of transactions recorded while 1,317,621,686 volume of online transfer transactions valued at N72.25 trillion were recorded in Q2 2020.
However, in its quest to boost facilitation of payments between SME and retail customers in the digital space, Access Bank Plc recently unveiled SWIFTPAY, a digital payment service that enhances the receipt of business payments by enabling customers make quick, easy and secure digital payments on social media platforms to merchants.
Speaking to newsmen during the launch of the new service in Lagos, Group, Head, Emerging Businesses, Access Bank plc, Ayodele Olojede, noted that the lockdown,experienced in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in less in-person interactions and less in-person payment options.
She revealed that statistics from a survey carried out post-lockdown showed that MSMEs were impacted by cash flow, revenue and sales while adding that the impact of the pandemic made more apparent the lack of infrastructure and access to digital resources for small businesses.
“This is why Access Bank introduced SWIFTPAY to support the digital transition and growth of SME businesses. This product is part of the bank’s commitment to support SMEs to meet their business objectives despite the times. The new service comes in form of a payment link that can be hosted on merchants’ social media pages and sent to anyone to pay and conclude business transactions. It is easy and takes less than 5 minutes for interested merchants to sign up as it is convenient and time saving for everyone.
Ayodele also revealed that the bank is committed to providing very practical solutions that support the growth of small business in Nigeria.
“SWIFTPAY is free and the processing charge is discounted up to 15 per cent to ensure merchants keep most of their earnings. In recent times, e-commerce has been challenged with the rise in fraud on social media, we have ensured that every merchant registered on SWIFTPAY carries a ‘verified by access ‘stamp to authenticate the page giving customers confidence when they transact.
“We have been focused on providing solutions targeted at boosting the economy because we believe it is our responsibility to contribute to the stimulation of economic growth. With the launch of “SWIFTPAY by Access”, we are renewing our commitment to providing the much-needed technological support to our SMEs.” Olojede concluded.
