“Customer, come now, it has been a while. I have fresh yam ooo,” Fatimah Abu shouted in pidgin English as she saw a car about to park near her roadside stand. Fatimah sells farm produce, including yams, okra, tomatoes, onions, chilli and potatoes. She is one of about a dozen Fulani women who sell farm produce along the roadside at Fruit Market in Lugbe, a suburb about 12 kilometres from Abuja city centre.
As soon as the customer began bargaining with her, a young woman carrying a Point-of-Sale (POS) machine and wearing a black pouch around her neck appeared. For those familiar with the market, the routine is hardly surprising. Fatimah and several other women in the area do not accept bank transfers or use POS machines. For them, cash remains king.
Fatimah and the other women operate a makeshift farm-produce market that serves residents and workers around Lugbe who want to avoid the hassle of going to the main market. The routine is simple: motorists park by the roadside, buy what they need and leave. Although digital payments are becoming increasingly common around them, many of the women have yet to embrace the mode of payment. “I don’t take transfers.
I don’t have a bank account. Let me call you the POS girl,” Fatimah told her customer. The POS operator charges between ₦100 and ₦200 for every ₦5,000 withdrawal. It is a common practice in Nigeria. A quick survey of the market showed that most sellers accept digital payments, highlighting the divide between traders who have embraced Nigeria’s rapidly expanding digital payment ecosystem and those who still rely almost entirely on cash.
Nigeria has made significant progress in digital payments over the past decade.