Olatunji Akinrinola’s account of payment-platform work offers a practitioner’s view of Nigeria’s digital-payments shift, but its project results are interview claims, not independently audited findings. Central Bank of Nigeria figures show that instant transfers, PoS, mobile and internet transactions all grew in the first half of 2024; the next challenge is making that growth reliable, secure and useful to more people.
Who is Olatunji Akinrinola?
A TechTimes profile published on August 12, 2024, presents Akinrinola as a data-analytics and business-strategy professional associated with eTranzact International Plc. It connects his work to payment platforms, partnerships, customer experience, security and compliance. The article also references a News Afriq Personal Finance Technology Professional of the Year recognition, but does not provide independent award documentation or a detailed employment and education history. These details are best treated as the profile’s account, not a complete independently verified biography. Read the TechTimes profile.
What counts as a digital payment?
Digital payments are not synonymous with mobile wallets or cryptocurrency. In Nigeria, the term covers several connected but distinct ways to pay or move money electronically:
- Bank transfers and instant-payment services.
- Internet and mobile banking, cards and contactless payments.
- Point-of-sale (PoS) transactions and merchant acquiring.
- QR payments, mobile-money services and fintech wallets.
- Government, bill, salary and business-to-business payments, as well as cross-border transfers and remittances.
Each channel depends on a wider system of account providers, processors, switches, networks, merchants, agents and regulators. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) describes these as separate components and payment modes rather than one interchangeable product. CBN payment modes and statistics.
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What explains the expansion?
In the TechTimes interview, Akinrinola points to greater mobile-device use, customer demand for speed and convenience, partnerships between financial institutions and fintech companies, data analytics, ongoing product improvement, better platform integration, security and compliance, and the need to reach underserved users. These are plausible forces behind adoption, but the interview alone does not establish their relative contribution to national growth.
The practical point is that a payment product rarely succeeds on its interface alone. A transfer or card payment may pass through several organizations, and the customer experiences the whole chain: authorization, processing, settlement, notifications, reconciliation and, when something goes wrong, dispute handling.
What the Nigerian payments data shows
The CBN’s published figures for January through June 2024 show substantial activity across instant payments, PoS, mobile and internet channels. The comparisons below are with the second half of 2023; they are historical figures, not a current 2026 tally.
| Channel or measure | January–June 2024 | Change from July–December 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| NIBSS Instant Payment volume | 5.626 billion transactions | +16% |
| NIBSS Instant Payment value | ₦476.89 trillion | +39% |
| PoS terminals deployed | 2,935,765 terminals | +20% |
| PoS transaction volume | 6.396 billion transactions | +29% |
| PoS transaction value | ₦85.914 trillion | +39% |
| Mobile-payment volume | 3.493 billion transactions | +19% |
| Mobile-payment value | ₦159.419 trillion | +30% |
| Internet-transaction volume | 11.638 billion transactions | Approximately +12% |
| Internet-transaction value | ₦825.50 trillion | Approximately +30% |
Source: CBN payment-system modes and statistics. Volume counts transactions; value totals the naira moved. Neither directly measures how many unique people adopted digital payments or how often the average household uses them. Large corporate or treasury transfers, interbank movements and repeated low-value payments can affect totals. Terminal deployments are also not the same as terminals that are active, connected or available where customers need them.
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What Akinrinola says he learned from payment projects
Partnerships need operational alignment
The profile describes Akinrinola working on partnerships between payment processors and financial institutions. He says alignment involves more than agreeing to launch a service: parties need to settle security expectations, processing parameters, compliance responsibilities, dispute handling and commercial objectives. That matters because a customer may not know which organization is responsible when a payment is delayed or reversed.
Nigeria’s payments system includes banks, card schemes, mobile-money operators, switching and processing companies and other licensed-provider categories. A business evaluating a provider can use the CBN’s payment-service-provider directory as a regulatory cross-check, while confirming the specific product and authorization relevant to its use case.
Customer experience includes failure recovery
Akinrinola emphasizes simpler interfaces and improved customer experience. For a consumer, that should mean more than fewer taps: clear confirmation, understandable limits and fees, timely status updates, accessible support, and a workable path to investigate a debit that was not credited. A merchant needs dependable settlement records and a way to reconcile transactions against sales.
Analytics should measure outcomes, not just activity
Analytics can help teams see where users abandon a process, where transactions fail, or which patterns may indicate fraud. But rising transaction counts by themselves do not show that a service is more useful or profitable. A meaningful scorecard also tracks completion and reversal rates, fraud losses, complaints, settlement delays, support resolution and costs.
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Security and compliance belong in product design
The interview describes collaboration with legal and compliance teams, monitoring regulatory developments, audits, risk assessments and staff training. That approach makes compliance part of product development rather than a last-minute launch check. It also helps clarify who verifies identity, monitors suspicious activity, protects data and handles customer complaints.
What the reported gateway overhaul does—and does not—show
The TechTimes profile says Akinrinola led a payment-gateway overhaul focused on processing speed, reliability and downtime, simpler and more responsive interfaces, peak-volume capacity, tokenization, encryption and PCI DSS compliance. It reports that he described the project as delivering the following improvements:
| Reported result | Attribution and evidence limit |
|---|---|
| 40% improvement in processing times | Reported by Akinrinola in the TechTimes profile; no baseline, measurement period or methodology is supplied. |
| 30% increase in transaction volume | Reported by Akinrinola; the profile does not identify the system’s comparison period or isolate the cause of the change. |
| 50% reduction in security incidents | Reported by Akinrinola; the incident definition, count, period and independent audit are not provided. |
| 25% increase in customer-satisfaction ratings | Reported by Akinrinola; the survey instrument, sample and comparison period are not stated. |
The client is not named, and the profile does not include a project report or independent corroboration. These figures are therefore reported interview claims, not independently verified performance benchmarks for the payments industry. The profile’s project account.
Why digital payments still fail users
Digital transactions can reduce the need to carry cash, but they introduce different risks and points of failure. A payment can be delayed by an outage or weak connection; a sender may see success before the recipient sees funds; an account can be debited during a disruption and require a reversal. Merchants can face settlement uncertainty, confusing disputes or insufficient information to reconcile a sale. PoS agents may lack connectivity or cash when a customer needs either.
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Fraud also shifts rather than disappears. Social engineering can persuade a person to disclose a one-time password (OTP) or approve a transfer; SIM swaps and account takeover can compromise access. Encryption protects data in transit or at rest, but cannot by itself stop a user from being tricked or a compromised device from being abused. Tokenization can reduce exposure of payment credentials, while analytics or AI can help identify suspicious patterns; each needs sound implementation, monitoring and governance. Blockchain is not a universal remedy and is not automatically required for ordinary account-to-account payments.
Access is another constraint. A digital-only product can exclude people without smartphones, reliable data or power, formal identification, a bank account, digital literacy or nearby cash-in/cash-out agents. Affordability, privacy, trust and accessible dispute resolution shape whether nominal availability becomes useful access.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What consumers and businesses should check
For consumers
- Compare reliability, transfer limits, fees, speed and the provider’s process for tracing or reversing failed transactions.
- Check that alerts and receipts show a confirmed transaction status; a screenshot from a sender is not proof that a merchant has received cleared funds.
- Use available authentication controls, protect OTPs and approval prompts, and contact the provider through its official channel if a transaction or account looks suspicious.
- Consider whether customer support, privacy practices and non-app alternatives such as USSD or agent access meet your needs.
For merchants
- Assess settlement timing and predictability, reconciliation tools, refunds, disputes and support—not only the advertised transaction fee.
- Check which methods customers can use, such as transfers, cards, QR or wallets, and whether the system integrates with accounting, inventory or commerce software.
- Test transaction status notifications and records, including what happens during outages, duplicate requests and delayed settlement.
- Review total cost, including hardware, chargebacks, refunds, currency conversion and support, as applicable to the provider and your business.
Nigeria’s next policy phase
The CBN launched Payments System Vision 2028 on June 1, 2026, making it the current strategic framework rather than the earlier Vision 2025. Its six guiding principles are interoperability, security, inclusion, innovation, trust and collaboration. The vision also emphasizes stronger supervision, consumer protection, cross-border integration, regional and international expansion, and alignment with international standards. CBN Payments System Vision 2028.
These priorities address a central trade-off: connecting more providers can make payments more convenient, but it also raises the importance of common standards, clear responsibility, resilience and effective recourse. The World Bank’s 2026 work on instant payments in Africa likewise frames real-time systems as an opportunity for inclusion and growth while noting policy barriers, compliance costs and licensing challenges for nonbank providers. World Bank report on instant payments.
The practical lesson from Akinrinola’s account
Akinrinola’s profile is most useful as a practitioner’s perspective on the work behind a payment product: partnership coordination, customer-centered design, analytics, security and compliance. Its project metrics should remain attributed to the interview, while the CBN’s dated statistics establish the broader market expansion. For users and businesses, a successful digital-payments system is not simply one that processes more transactions; it must also handle failures clearly, protect customers, settle predictably and work for people with different devices, connectivity and levels of access.
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