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Pan-African ICT company, Computer Warehouse Group Plc (CWG) has been licensed to perform the activities of Payment Terminal Service Provider (PTSP) to Point-of-Sale terminals (PoS) in Nigeria by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
This disclosure was made following a visit by a delegation of the apex bank to CWG to assess the company’s preparedness and ensure that the company has fulfilled all conditions necessary and qualified to be licensed as a Payment Terminal Service Provider in the country.
“CWG has successfully passed through the various stages of evaluation. These include an inspection of the company’s facility and processes, an allowance of a test period, during which the company’s products were carefully examined for quality and standard. CWG is hereby licensed to perform the activities Payment Terminal Service Provider (PTSP) for Point-of-Sale terminals (POS) in Nigeria,” said Mr. Dipo Fatokun, the Director, Banking and Payment Systems Department at CBN.
The PTSP license certifies that a company has the infrastructure to competently deploy, maintain and provide support for POS terminals in Nigeria. According to the CBN, “A PTSP shall offer services to acquirers covering all aspects relating to terminal management support, including but not limited to purchase and replacement of spare parts, provision of connectivity, training, repairs, and development of value added services, amongst other things.”
While reacting to the development, Mr. Austin Okere, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CWG, noted that the license is a testimony that CWG Plc can competently deploy functional PoS terminals to the market at a time when CBN is vigorously pursuing the ideal of making the Nigerian business clime a cashless model.
Although the number of POS terminals increased to about 125,000 as at June last year and the value of PoS transactions increased to about N138 billion during the same period, statistics from the apex bank also indicate that about 46 per cent of adult Nigerians have no access to financial services.
“Our track record in the financial services sector as indicated in the deployment of our Finacle core banking application to foremost banks in Nigeria, our technical platforms for Firstmonie and DiamondYello account, are pointers to our capacity to be instrumental to the actualization of a truly cashless economy,” Okere added.
