The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed plans to extend the cashless policy to other states in the country before June 2014.

The Deputy Governor (Operations), CBN, Mr. Tunde Lemo, revealed in an interview with journalists at the 20th anniversary of the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) titled: “The Evolution to the Future Cashless Nigeria: Positioning the Nigerian Payment and Settlement Ecosystem for Cash-less Reality,” in Lagos.

The cashless policy, which was introduced in Lagos in January 2012 was extended to Abuja, Kano Rivers, Ogun, Abia and Anambra States in July this year. Its aim is to reduce the dominance of cash as a means of payment in the economy.

According to Lemo, in order to ensure effective nationwide rollout by next year, the central bank would collaborate with other stakeholders in the payment system to integrate mobile phones into point of sale (PoS) machines.

He stated that they hope to rollout to all the states by the second quarter of next year as well as  roll out more PoS machines and added that they have to see how they can integrate the mobile phones into the network because in the hinterlands, the challenges would be more,.

The CBN deputy governor said the 20th anniversary of the NIBSS was an opportunity to discuss how to continue to transform the Nigerian payment system, adding that the value and volume of electronic payment has grown significantly.