How cash dominance and transfers hinder tap-to-pay in Nigeria Why contactless payments struggle to gain traction in Nigeria On October 13, CashAfrica announced a partnership with Food Concepts, a quick-service restaurant company, to introduce mobile tap-to-pay across Chicken Republic’s more than 350 outlets, as part of its effort to make the payment method more widely adopted in Nigeria. If you have taken a Lagos Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) bus, you have probably used tap-to-pay technology.
The blue Cowry card, operated by Touch and Pay Technologies (TAP) for Lagos’ transport authority, works across the city’s road, rail, and ferry networks. TAP says it has more than 300,000 active users and has processed over 56 million transactions across its operations.
The reason the system works is that the card and technology are purpose-built for paying for transportation, and the contactless payment system is integrated into the journey, as commuters are required to tap to pay before boarding the bus. It is a starting point for understanding the challenge facing contactless payments in Nigeria. The technology for tap-to-pay is not new.
A contactless payment requires a customer with a contactless card or near-field communication (NFC)-enabled device, a merchant with a compatible terminal, and payment infrastructure that connects the transaction to the customer’s bank or payment provider. Data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) shows that POS terminals processed 1.38 billion transactions worth ₦18.32 trillion ($13.5 billion) in 2024. Cash has historically dominated how Nigerians pay, but it has been shrinking.
Between 2014 and 2024, cash transactions in Nigeria fell by 59%. What replaced cash transactions was electronic payments. This means that Nigerians do not need to be convinced that they can pay digitally, since they already do. What they are not yet convinced of is why they should pay this way. A