Hooray! January is done and dusted!

The only month everyone stays awake to see – its first second, its first minute, its earliest hour, and more.

Yet, January’s anticipated joys can be an anticlimax.

Looking forward to the last January, we wrote a few hours to 2023:

“For people of all religious faiths and pets of all racial fractions, New Year’s Eve marks the culmination of a Happy December, in which they’d sought respite from work and purchased wholesale fancies, food, and fun to share with friends and family.

“Indeed, December’s pricey happiness peaks this midnight, plateaus into the early hours of New Year’s Day, and progresses into an anticlimax before the sunset of the first day of a Humbling January, as the trend shows.”

Data shows that January is always a sobering month. Old certainties disappear. 

New realities appear. 

Naira realities. Naija realities.

Last year, we had the benefit of foresight into the first quarter of the new year 2023.

We predicted A Humbling January, Harsh February, and a Hopeful March Ahead.”

The first quarter of 2023 turned out the way we predicted.

Consumer spending, proxied by the value of POS transactions, bounced back in an unprecedented way in March 2023.

Will the first quarter of 2024 see the same humbling January and hopeful March?

Let’s see.

A Dearth of Data

Since December 2022, when we made the earlier prediction, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) posted only 4 additional months of e-payment banking industry data for December 2022-March 2023.

E-payment data for April 2023 to December 2023 could not be sighted on the NIBSS website as of the time of writing.

This is unusual.

The November 2022 banking sector’s e-payment data was available for public use a month later in December 2022.

The usual prompt release of these data enabled the trend analysis and useful advisory we provided for the public on December 31, 2022, relating to matters of the economy and personal finance going into the new year 2023.

It states on its website though that: “The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) was incorporated in 1993 and is owned by all licensed banks including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). It commenced operations in June 1994.

“Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) operation is supported with the best Information, Communication and Technology infrastructure for Automated On-line operations as well as effective information and data transmission security practices to deliver world-class payment/settlement services. Operational and Credit Risks in funds transfer across financial institutions are adequately mitigated by NIBSS operations.”

Yet, the NIBSS did not display the number of POS deployed since February 2022 till date.

For registered POS, the last entry was for July 2021.

Sighted 27/01/2023

The once available e-payment factsheets were no longer there.

The company’s statement read “NIBSS e-payment fact sheet was developed for the purpose of sharing industry information that would facilitate innovation and growth in Nigeria’s e-payments Industry. Please find below the most recent fact sheets:

e-Payment Factsheet as at December 2021

e-Payment Factsheet as at December 2020

e-Payment Factsheet as at December 2019

e-Payment Factsheet as at December 2018

e-Payment Factsheet as at December 2017

e-Payment Factsheet as at December 2016

e-Payment Factsheet as at December 2015

e-Payment Factsheet as at December 2014”

Interestingly, the NIBSS views its December 2021 e-payment factsheet as “the most recent”.

Dearth, delay, or distortion of business and socioeconomic data may open the field for speculations and misinformation across the board.

Making data-driven inferences and fact-based decisions may get harder in Nigeria as the days pass.

Does the CBN or the NBS have it, then?

We could not find banking industry data beyond December 2022 from the two official Data Houses in Nigeria.