Welcome to PayCashless blog site. I’m Shakiru Owolabi, author of the site. I’ve flair for expressing my thought and opinion on topical issues that comes my way. The idea just struck me, to take advantage of this global information sharing medium, and use it to express my little experience about e-commerce payments system to the world.
PayCashless weblog is therefore, about e-commerce solutions, of which, e-commerce payment is an integral part.
Two reasons prompted me to put up this site:
First, my home country’s Central Bank policy, to move Nigeria economy away from the cash-base, to cashless-base economy, in theme with present reality as obtained in other part of the world.
Secondly, my experience as newbie in online payment system, some years back.
Looking way back to around 1992 downward, prior to the deployment of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and the electronic card, as alternative cash withdrawal instrument in Nigeria, we’re use to queuing up in banks to cash cheques or deposit money into our accounts. The experience is better imagined, particularly during workers pay this period. One could imagine the rowdy crowd of customers that come to cash cheques in banks.
January 2012, mark the beginning of a new economy policy, as the Central Bank kick-start the Cashless payment campaign in Lagos state.
Prior to this time, Nigeria economy is virtually cash-based. Perhaps, the only exception is, the use of bank cheque in business-to-business (B2B) transactions settlement. Also I must mention the ingenuity of Lagos state government in transforming its revenue generation drive since the current political dispensation. Lagos state is in fact, the pioneer of e-payment in governance being the first to introduce it in 1999, to shore-up it’s internally generated revenue.
In fairness, introduction of ATM truly reduce congestion in our banks to some extent. But more needs to be done because the machines are inadequate. In pursuance of this, the government came up with the cashless base economy policy, to minimize currency circulation in business environment.
I was impressed by this innovation and feel motivated to make an in-put towards archiving that aim.
My second reason, was the lesson learnt with my little exposure to online payment activities in the past years.
I was amazed by the stack reality of the world business community attitude towards Nigerian citizens, in matters relating to online buying and selling.
Do I hear you say why? Right!
Sometimes in 2008, I bought a brand new Acer laptop locally. It came with installed McAfee internet security protection software and, programmed to last three-month trial period after which, I must pay for its continue usage.
After the expiration, I purchased a virtual debit card to enable me pay for the update but the transactions were declined at every attempts. Even the issuer couldn’t help in the matter. I was only lucky once, to successfully purchase a downloadable software, which I really don’t need after several attempts with some software merchants. In the end, I lost my balance to the bargain after the card’s expiration date.
This was how I started learning that Nigeria ranked high among countries black-listed for cyber crime related offences round the world.Today, I know that internet fraud is a global phenomenon and that, even government and big establishments are not immune from hackers attack.This challenge is not beyond redemption.
PayCashless in this blog-site, intend to explore the e-commerce solutions, for the benefit of people and better appreciation of e-commerce payment system.
The passive attitude is understandably due to people’s ignorance of e-commerce payment. This I wish to address extensively.
PayCashless 