Turning India into a cashless economy: The challenges to overcome

Arunava Ghosh

f15arunavg@iimidr.ac.in

Indian Institute of Management Indore

1. Introduction

Cashless economy is defined as a situation in which there is very less cash transactions as most of the
transactions are done using electronic means such as cards or digital mobile wallets (Dave 2016).
Cashless transactions are more convenient than their cash counterparts. There is no need to stand in
long ATM queues. Cashless transactions ease the rate of sales in grocery shops. There are labour costs
involved while preparing the paper deposit for the grocery‘s bank account, for counting cash, then
depositing it to the bank. But use of cashless electronic payments methods saves from the above
tedious task, as the transactions are cleared directly at the point of sale and therefore do not need
additional ledger preparation. Cashless economy brings a lot more financial inclusion for the
Government and increases the economic growth. Banks have an easier task in keeping track of the
financial transactions happening across the states. Also, cashless economy reduces the burden of
carrying cash around especially preventing the carrying of change to pay during an exchange (Odior
and Banuso 2012).

However, there are certain challenges even in cashless transactions. There is a lack of confidence
while doing a cashless transaction as security is a major issue. The device being used for a cashless
transaction might get hacked and the details of the customer can be phished out (Ghosh 2017). Some
nations have a low level of internet penetration impeding the smooth flow of cashless economy.
Illiteracy and resistance to changes in technology further increases the friction to cashless economy
(Yaqub, J O;Bello, H.T; Adenuga, I.A;& Ogundeji 2013). As per the Technology Adoption model,
there will be laggards who are very conservative and very less educated and will resist to most of the
technological changes happening in the society (Parente and Prescott 1994).

Recently, we have observed that developing nations are adopting cashless economy. Some of the
notable countries are Nigeria (2012), Hong Kong (1997), and India (2016). We would like to

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2989290

highlight the issues and challenges pertaining to the cashless economy drive in India primarily
because of two reasons. First, India is a country of more than 1.2 billion population with diverse
economic and social backgrounds and with a federal structure in its governance. This means that
although the Central government do have the power of initiating such a move, there is always a
conflict between State and Centre. Second is the huge economic disparity which exists in different
states of India (Statistics Times 2015). Therefore, we believe that understanding the issues of adopting
a cashless economy in country such as India will provide us with in-depth knowledge about the
challenges of adopting the same in other developing countries.

The recent demonetization of INR 500 and INR 1000 currency notes by the Government of India and
the limit on the cash withdrawals at banks pushed millions of users into the cashless economy. The
latest trend of the expanding cashless economy in India post demonetization has been reviewed from
the news articles at The Economic Times and The Times of India and few reports from the Forbes
India Magazine. A simple Google Search was used to find out the specific articles and reports from
the news websites related to the trending cashless economy in India and the challenges being faced.
Based on the Forbes report on 14 December, 2016, around 95% of all transactions in India happened
in cash and a significant population didn‘t have a bank account. By putting a stop on the cash driven
economy through demonetization, the Government tried to bring most of the transactions under the
track-able and taxable cashless economy means like the debit cards, credit cards and the mobile
wallets. Based on the report at the Economic Times by PayTM, the leading mobile wallet company in
India, there has been 435% rise in its overall traffic post demonetization. Even small vendors have
registered at PayTM to accept payments. Many bank accounts have been opened in response to
demonetization. The National Payments Corporation of India developed the Bharat Interface for
Money (BHIM app) for transacting amounts directly between the bank accounts of two parties.
Government of India is trying to bring the unbanked sector under financial inclusion. Financial
inclusion is the ability to access essential financial services (Sinclair 2001).

‗CASHLESS INDIA‘, a digital India programme of the Government on India to transform India into a
digitally empowered and knowledge driven society (GOI 2017). Various digital payments have been
made available.

 Banking Cards: Three types of cards are available – debit, credit and prepaid. These cards
enable people to purchase items from stores or e-commerce websites. Banking cards provide
2-factor authentication for safe and secure payments (Aarts, F., Poll, E., & de Ruiter 2012).
 USSD: Stands for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data. The service enables mobile
banking transactions through any mobile handset. It also doesn‘t require an active data
connection for mobile banking. It is going to be a major boost for financial inclusion of the
under banked society (Carr 2007).

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2989290

  IVR: Stands for Interactive Voice Response Systems. Customer would dial the IVR number
given by the bank. The IVR system would respond in the language the customer is
comfortable in. He has to key in his ID and OTP to login into the banking server to avail the
services such as balance enquiry, money transfer, etc. (Ghosh, De, and Mahanti 2014)
 Mobile Wallets: These are virtual wallets in digital form. One can transfer an amount from his
bank account to his mobile wallet to make payments or purchases (Shin 2009). PayTM and
Freecharge are the major players as mobile wallet service providers (India 2017).
 Internet Banking: Also known as online banking or virtual banking. This service facilitates
customers to conduct their financial transactions through the webpage of the financial
institution (Tan and Teo 2000).
 Point of Sale: A place where sales are made. There is a handheld device with a card reader.
Customers can complete their transactions while making a purchase at the point of sale at the
checkout counter. The handheld devices at the Point of Sale must be connected through GPRS
(Zdravkovic 1998).

At present India is facing a lot of issues to go cashless. To the best of my knowledge, the following
are the major issues that India is facing at present. We present a table highlighting the issues along
with the possible reasons (Exhibit 1).

2. Literature Review Methodology

All articles reviewed for this paper have been collated from Google Scholar.

Search Criteria: A search was done to obtain the papers and articles with the phrase ―Cashless
Economy‖ in their title. Include patents and citations were unchecked. After the search, a total of 68
papers were obtained. Out of 68 papers, only 42 papers could be downloaded. The remaining 26
papers couldn‘t be downloaded as our institution doesn‘t have full subscription at Proquest. Some
papers from Wiley and Springer, due to the lack of purchase information weren‘t accessible. IEEE full
papers weren‘t accessible through our institution network. One of the missing papers downloaded,
dealt with the Cashless Economy in Russia, was in the Slavic script and couldn‘t be interpreted. Most
of the papers discussed below are related to the cashless economy of Nigeria and one paper discussed
about the current scenario of cashless economy in Hong Kong. Due to the benefits of the cashless
economy, Hong Kong went for a cashless drive in 1997 with the development of the Octopus
micropayment system (Smith 2016). Hong Kong is one of the first countries that introduced the
cashless payment system in 1997 by introducing the Octopus card. Today, 80% of the transactions
made in Hong Kong are done electronically (South China Morning Post 2017). Nigeria takes a step
forward towards cashless economy after the pronouncement of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in
January, 2012. At present, Nigeria is still on transition to cashless economy because of which Nigeria
is facing issues on this transition. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the potential implications of
cashless economy in Nigeria and the issues being faced to implement the same.

3. Literature Review

The literature review is organized as follows. We start with the objective of cashless drive in Nigeria
in Section 3.1. In Section 3.2 and 3.3, we describe the advantages of the cashless economy and the
benefits of the Banking Sector. In Section 3.4, we discuss on how employment opportunities are
created by the cashless economy. Section 3.5, gives us the benefits of E-Banking. Finally, Section 3.6
presents the feasibility issues when transiting to a cashless economy.

3.1 Objective of Cashless Drive in Nigeria

With the objective of elevating Nigeria to the top 20 economies by 2020, CBN introduced a cash
handling charge in January 2012 on daily cash withdrawals that exceed a certain amount for
individuals. This policy was aimed at reducing the circulation of physical cash and increasing the
electronic-based transactions for the purchase of goods and services in Nigeria (Donbuffy 2016).
Based on the CBN report in 2011, 99% of the transactions in Nigeria happened through cash. In most
developing countries, especially like Nigeria, a large section of the population did not have access to
the banking system. As a result, majority of the population was transacting in cash. Therefore, it was
very difficult for banks to get an estimate of the volume of cash currently in circulation (Ikechukwu
2012). The cash circulating outside the economy needs to be brought into the formal banking system
(Bayero 2015).

3.2 Advantages

The advantages of using a cashless economy are many. First, carrying of cash encourages crimes
related to theft robbery (Alawiye-Adams 2012). Majority of the Nigerians are already aware of this
benefit (P. V. C. Okoye and Raymond 2013; Achor and Robert 2013). Second, customers will have an
increased convenience to banking services. Third, businesses would have faster payment processing.
Payments made to businesses via POS will generate an instant ledger which would help during tax
accounting (E. Okoye and Avwokeni 2014). Time spent on collecting, sorting and counting cash is
eliminated (Amujiri 2015). Fourth, all the major economical transactions would be under one roof
preventing bribery and efforts to disrupt the financial transparency.

3.3 Benefits of Banking Sector

In addition to the advantages to the general population at large, the banking system too benefits from
this initiative. For example, the costs for printing of notes would come down significantly (Odior and
Banuso 2012). Cash withdrawn through ATM cards cost more as the cash withdrawn must be
replenished and maintained which also incur additional security costs. Cash withdrawn through
cheques incur three times more cost than cash withdrawn through ATM cards (Gresvik, Olaf 2002).
Also, physical cash has a life span. The note would become old and eventually get destroyed. Banks
will have to replace them with new notes. Cashless Economy drive would reduce the circulation of
cash in the economy abetting the banks to print lesser notes (C. I. Ugwu and Epiahe 2014).

3.4 Employment Opportunities

With regard to inclusive growth opportunities, the initiative of cashless economy would bring
additional employment. Cashless economy would lead to the growth of mobile financial services
companies. These companies would create employment opportunities for technology graduates who
are currently unemployed (Ikpefan, O. A., & Omankhanle 2012). A cashless economy would lead to
entrepreneurship. Many individuals would come up with ideas to establish mobile financial services
company and training centres. The training centre would train the youths about the technology behind
the cashless devices thus providing employment opportunities to technology graduates as trainers
(Osunade 2011). These growth opportunities would attract investments from abroad (Muyiwa,
Tunmibi, and Afaha 2013).

3.5 Benefits of E-banking

Cashless economy would bring in E-Banking in lieu of the traditional brick and mortar. E-Banking is
the conducting of banking services directly to customers over electronic media (Singh 2001). E-
Banking reduces the transaction costs incurred thereby increasing the banking penetration (Adurayemi
and State 2016). (Akinyemi, Asani, and Adigun 2013) shows how Nigerians find E-banking more
easy, useful and convenient as they no longer have to wait in long queues for fund transfers and cash
deposits which can now be easily done online. E-Payments have a wide range of payment options like
POS, mobile payments, banking cards and internet banking. Also E-Payments via credit cards make
instant purchase possible even when there is insufficient balance in the bank account. Payment of
school bills, electricity bills and other utility bills can be directly done online instead of waiting in
long queues (Felix, Rebecca, and Igbinoba 2015).

3.6 Feasibility Issues

Though the CBN prepares Nigerians to transit to cashless economy, issues have come up which
question the feasibility of the policy. For cashless economy to succeed in Nigeria, consumers trust has
been identified as a major factor. In Nigeria, crackers1 succeed obtaining information from consumers
via hacking and phishing of websites (P. V. C. Okoye and Raymond 2013). Therefore, banks have to
come forward to protect the trust of their customers. In Nigeria, customer can access their bank

1
Crackers are those hackers who break into computers for criminal gain.
account via customer call centre unlike in India. Therefore, trust between customer and call centre is
an important aspect. One way banks in Nigeria can solve this issue, is by building a reliable customer
call centre. The call centre operator would request the consumer to give the Unique Identification
Number to get access to his records with the bank. Unfortunately, at present, all Nigerians don‘t have
their Unique Identification Numbers (Olorisade and Ogunrinde 2011).

The financial infrastructure currently operating in Nigeria isn‘t capable of withstanding the load of
cashless transactions. There is a lack of ATMs POS and other mediums essential for cashless
transactions. Less than 40% of the economy of Nigeria is covered via ATMs, POS, mobile banking
and other cashless transaction beneficiaries. Nigerian villages are not covered by Government
policies. Level of Government presence in Nigerian villages is very low. Around 95 million in Nigeria
are without electricity. According to the Government report, Nigerians spend more on self-generated
light and power using candles and diesel due to the lack of grid-based electricity (Muoh 2016).
Electricity is a major commodity to conduct cashless transactions for operating bank servers, POS,
accessing mobile payments, banking cards and internet banking.

In Nigeria, banks are scattered throughout the country. Unique Identification Account Number isn‘t
available with most of the Nigerians. There is no core banking available. According to (Garuba 2008),
CBN revoked the licences of 36 banks from 1994 to 2003 stating the reason of lack of account
transparency. Due to this, the depositors lost all their money and they lost their trust on the Nigerian
banking system. Therefore, most of the businessmen prefer keeping their money in their vaults. Also,
the Northern part of Nigeria has a very low literacy level. It is very difficult for people there to
understand the technology or the benefits behind the cashless economy. Even micro and small scale
business owners might be uneducated and not have a bank account. To implement and maintain the e-
payment platform in their businesses, they would have to make technological investments. But banks
in Nigeria don‘t give them loans as micro and small scale businesses are considered as risky
(Nurudeen, Y. Z., Ogbadu, E. E., & afaru Garba, n.d.). Therefore, micro and small scale business
owners have very less motivation to switch to e-payment platforms but still they need to be educated
about the e-payment platform technology usage (Ebeiyamba Oluchukwu 2014).

There are many religious conflicts in Nigeria where a particular religious group follow the
conventional banking system and resist any changes happening in the economy as they find it an
insult to their religious culture (Salawu 2010).

CBN still has to make a lot of investments to implement the technology behind the cashless economy.
Investments have to be made in building the infrastructure and train the population on the technology
to operate cashless devices. Marketing the cashless economy‘s benefits over radio or television
requires huge investments (Ebeiyamba Oluchukwu 2014). Communication Networks such as mobile
networks are needed to be made robust (Odior and Banuso 2012). Internet penetration issue prevails
in Nigeria till date. Bank networks have poor network connectivity and often have server issues. In
Nsukka, a local town in South East Nigeria, there are no POS machine available. Therefore, residents
in Nsukka have to withdraw cash from ATM, which are again very less in number (Olelewe, C.J. and
NwalaUgwunna 2014). Therefore, Information and Communication Technology should be taken up
as a priority to establish a robust networking system as the success of cashless economy policy
depends on the quality of internet service to a lot extent (Ukpong and Friday 2016).

The transition from cash-based economy to cashless economy in Nigeria suffers from the general
resistance to change as the number of Nigerian bank staffs currently involved in issuing cash to the
customers would gradually become lesser with the full-fledged implementation of the cashless
economy. This would create an unemployment issue which may not be welcomed by the Nigerians
(Abiodun et al. 2013). The Government of Nigeria must educate the population on the usefulness and
the ease of use of the cashless modes of payments. Once, the population starts seeing the benefits of
cashless economy, they will get accustomed to the same (Dahunsi and Akinyede 2014). At present
there is no limit on the number of bank accounts Nigerians can open. Therefore, Nigerians go for
many bank accounts to increase their limits for cash withdrawal (Ikpefan, O. A., & Omankhanle
2012). CBN has to cooperate with the Government and other financial institutions responsible for
collecting information about citizens. This information would let the CBN know about the financial
status of the account holder and check if there are any extra cash flows into his account in order to
prevent the inflow of black money (P. V. C. Okoye and Raymond 2013; Mieseigha and Ogbodo
2013). Recent studies by (Oyewole, O. S., El-Maude, J. G., Abba, M., & Onuh 2013) have found out
that ATMs may have contributed to the economic growth in Nigeria but e-payment channels have a
significant positive relationship with the economic growth in Nigeria. One of the reasons might be
that mobile payment channel has been recently introduced in Nigeria. Another reason might be the
cost incurred at present while transacting via the e-banking machines (Adurayemi and State 2016).
Therefore, the diffusion of innovations is yet to take place (Rogers 2010).

4. Proposed Research Gaps

Exhibit 2 summarizes the issues being faced in Nigeria in transiting to a cashless economy along with
the possible reasons. Twelve issues came up from Nigeria while in transiting to a cashless economy
out of which nine have been explained. However, the balance three issues related to inadequate
infrastructure, Government policy and religious conflicts remain unexplained and the causes of the
same need further attention. In India, we identified six issues, out of which three issues were in
common to the issues being faced in Nigeria. But two issues of India related to inadequate
infrastructure and unequal access to banking sector remain unexplained. One of the issues related to
inadequate infrastructure is present in Nigeria as well as in India and needs serious observation. India
has only 14 lac Point of Sale (POS) terminals which is too low. Especially in suburban and rural
areas, there is a lack of POS terminals. On similar lines, the financial infrastructure currently
operating in Nigeria isn‘t capable of withstanding the load of cashless transactions. Less than 40% of
the economy of Nigeria is covered via ATMs, POS, mobile banking and other cashless transaction
beneficiaries.

Of the two remaining unexplained issues in Nigeria related to Government policy and religious
conflicts, we believe that these two issues can be relevant for the Indian context.

Therefore, we argue the following research gaps

 India being a secular nation gives equal treatment to all religions. Policies introduced by the
Government must be made keeping in view of the interests of all religious communities. The
policies introduced may be welcomed by one religious community and may not be welcomed by
the other. We want to study how diversities in religion in a particular region impact the degree of
acceptability of cashless transactions in that particular region?
 In India, the Central government has the power to initiate a move but there is always a conflict
between the State and the Centre. Therefore, there exist issues in implementing Central
Government policies in States governed by other political parties. We wish to study the degree of
implementation of cashless economy in the centre versus in the states governed by other political
parties.

5. Proposed Research Methodology

Survey Based Methodology can be adopted for the first issue. Data Collection can be done in Indore
and Bhopal due to the presence of religious diversity.

For the second issue, case study methodology can be adopted to study the degree of implementation
of cashless economy in BJP and non-BJP governed states. Data Collection can be done in Madhya
Pradesh/Gujarat/UP and West Bengal/Odisha/Punjab for comparison and contrast of issues.
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Exhibit 1: Issues to cashless economy drive in India

Issues Description Reason References

Inadequate Infrastructure India has only around 14 lac Point of Sale Not mentioned (Hota 2016)
terminals which is too low. Especially in
suburban and rural areas, there is a lack of
POS terminals.
Uneven Participant Profile Lack of an ATM network exists. Banks are 2-factor authentication is not present in most of (Hota 2016)
not interested in issuing more ATM cards. the cards. In few POS, one can swipe a credit
Use of ATM cards in POS and ATM card and the transaction takes place without the
machines incur a convenience fee that OTP being generated. Bank customers are
customers are unwilling to pay. cyber attacked where crackers pose themselves
as bank staff and collect full card details from
the customers over phone.
Poor Mobile Internet For digital transactions and mobile banking Digital divide exists between rural and urban (Rao 2004)
Penetration financial inclusion, internet enabled mobile is population. In rural, there are many who don‘t (Jose 2016)
a must. Especially in rural areas, Internet have an internet enabled smartphone. Also (Norris 2001)
subscriptions may have no coverage. lower literacy level is also an issue making it
Connectivity is achieved by making long- difficult to push plastic money or mobile
distance calls to nearby cities. This results in wallets further.
slow and unreliable access.
Resistance to Change Many citizens still prefer using cash as it Citizens prefer cash transactions to avoid a (Ghosh 2017)
helps to avoid tax. Especially businesses track down on their revenue. Some even fear (Anwer 2016)
which are not registered always prefer the that their transaction details would leak out if
 use of cash. they perform digital transactions. The high cost
of Internet use is another hindrance.
Mobile Wallets leading to The rise of the usage of mobile wallets in The penetration of so many mobile wallet (Salaske 2017)
confusion India post demonetization has created a new start-ups has created a lot of confusion among
market segment. Many start-ups are coming the users especially the elderly citizens. Users
up with a promise of making life easier have to separately register to every mobile
through cashless payments. To penetrate the wallet service provider for obtaining its
market, they have come up with cash back service. This consumes a lot of data and time.
schemes such as pay for something and get Also maintaining balance in so many mobile
cash back of 50% credited to your mobile wallets is a challenge. Downloading too many
wallet. mobile wallet apps slow down the mobile
phone processing system.
Unequal access to banking The daily wage workers face a disadvantage Not mentioned (Deccan Chronicle 2016)
sector in cashless economy. These workers are
mostly immigrants working at construction
sites and can‘t have the privileges of having a
bank account. They are paid on daily basis
and mostly depend on cash transactions.
After the demonetization, they were affected
to a great extent as there was a cash crunch
with their employers who couldn‘t pay them.
Exhibit 2: Issues being faced in Nigeria in transiting to a cashless economy along with the possible reasons.

Issues Description Reason References

Customer trust factor
Inadequate Infrastructure
In Nigeria, crackers succeed obtaining The action Nigerian government takes to (P. V. C. Okoye and
information from consumers via hacking and prevent cyber frauds is inadequate. The law Raymond 2013)
phishing of websites. Therefore, banks have to only covers issues related to internet services (Elebeke 2011)
come forward to protect the trust of their but cyber-crime isn‘t covered. Nigeria has
customers. developed a lot of legislative bills to check
cyber fraud but none of those have been
implemented.
The financial infrastructure currently operating (Chimbelu 2011)
in Nigeria isn‘t capable of withstanding the Not Mentioned (Olelewe, C.J. and
load of cashless transactions. There is a lack of NwalaUgwunna 2014)
ATMs, POS and other mediums essential for
cashless transactions. Less than 40% of the
economy of Nigeria is covered via ATMs,
POS, mobile banking and other cashless
transaction beneficiaries. Internet penetration
issue prevails in Nigeria till date. Bank
networks have poor network connectivity and
often have server issues. In Nsukka, a local
town in South East Nigeria, there are no POS
machines available. Therefore, residents in
Nsukka have to withdraw cash from ATMs,
 which are again very less in number.
Government Policy Nigerian villages are not covered by Not Mentioned (Muoh 2016)
Implementation Government policies. Level of Government
presence in Nigerian villages is very low.
Power Around 95 million in Nigeria are without Recently established Nigerian Bulk Electricity (Muoh 2016)
electricity. Electricity is a major commodity to Trading (NBET) has a monopoly over the (Soleye 2017)
conduct cashless transactions. According to the national power grid. It resists the development
Government report, Nigerians spend more on in the electricity generation sector. The NBET
self-generated light and power using candles sets a price to sell the power and the Internal
and diesel due to the lack of grid-based Rate of Return for power projects. Resulting
electricity. greenfield generation projects to struggle for
years.
Financial Inclusion Due to the revoking of licences of 36 banks by In Nigeria, banks are scattered throughout the (Garuba 2008)
CBN, the depositors lost all their money and country. Unique Identification Account
they lost their trust on the Nigerian banking Number isn‘t available with most of the
system. Therefore, most of the businessmen Nigerians. There is no core banking available.
prefer keeping their money in their vaults. Due to lack of account transparency, CBN
revoked the licences of 36 banks from 1994 to
2003.
Literacy The Northern part of Nigeria has a very low Government of Nigeria had invested millions (O. Ugwu 2015)
literacy level. It is very difficult for people in education programmes. But the education
there to understand the technology or the programmes had very poor quality. 85% of the
benefits behind the cashless economy. Even schools are failing in Nigeria. School and
 micro and small scale business owners might University standards are very low compared to
be uneducated and not have a bank account. international benchmark. University fees are
not affordable.
Lack of financial aid To implement and maintain the e-payment Most Nigerian micro and small scale (Nurudeen, Y. Z., Ogbadu, E.
platform in businesses, micro and small scale businesses don‘t maintain proper account E., & afaru Garba, n.d.)
business owners would have to make records. They don‘t even have a balance sheet (Nwaigene 2016)
technological investments. But banks in classifying their assets and liabilities. Those
Nigeria don‘t give them loans as micro and who have accounting records don‘t get them
small scale businesses are considered as risky. audited periodically. For banks to give loans,
Therefore, micro and small scale business three years of audited financial statements that
owners have very less motivation to switch to show profit and loss accounts, cash flow
e-payment platforms. statements and balance sheets are needed.
Micro and small scale businesses fail to
provide these.
Religious Conflicts There are many religious conflicts in Nigeria Not mentioned (Deegan 2011)
where a particular religious group follow the
conventional banking system and resist any
changes happening in the economy as they find
it an insult to their religious culture.
Investments CBN still has to make a lot of investments to Marketing the cashless economy‘s benefits (Ebeiyamba Oluchukwu
implement the technology behind the cashless over radio or television requires huge 2014)
economy. Investments have to be made in investments. Communication Networks such (Odior and Banuso 2012)
building the infrastructure and train the as mobile networks are needed to be made
 population on the technology to operate robust.
cashless devices.
Resistance to Change The transition from cash-based economy to Introduction of e-payment platform would (Abiodun et al. 2013)
cashless economy in Nigeria suffers from the create an unemployment issue which may not
general resistance to change as the number of be welcomed by the Nigerians.
Nigerian bank staffs currently involved in
issuing cash to the customers would gradually
become lesser with the full-fledged
implementation of the cashless economy.
Multiple bank accounts Nigerians go for many bank accounts to At present there is no limit on the number of (Ikpefan, O. A., &
increase their limits for cash withdrawal. bank accounts Nigerians can open. Omankhanle 2012)
Time lag effect Recent studies have found out that ATMs may One of the reasons might be that mobile (Oyewole, O. S., El-Maude,
have contributed to the economic growth in payment channel has been recently introduced J. G., Abba, M., & Onuh
Nigeria but e-payment channels have a in Nigeria. Another reason might be the cost 2013)
significant positive relationship with the incurred at present while transacting via the e- (Adurayemi and State 2016)
economic growth in Nigeria. banking machines.