CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA Central Business District P.M.B. 0187, Garki, Abuja.

BANKING AND PAYMENTS SYSTEM DEPARTMENT BPSD/DIR/GEN/CIR/012 Thursday, September 18, 2014 To: All Deposit Money Banks and All Licensed Payments Service Providers ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS INCENTIVE SCHEME AND AWARENESS CAMPAIGN In furtherance of the drive for the pervasive usage of electronic payments in Nigeria, the Management of the Central Bank of Nigeria has approved an industry-wide Incentive Scheme and awareness campaign for electronic payments stakeholders and users.

The scheme is primarily focused to reward users of electronic payments in Nigeria and to further encourage greater adoption by all. The incentive scheme will reward and appreciate usage across all channels with emphasis on channels of electronic payments that promote financial inclusion.

The scheme has identified and will reward the following categories of users: · Consumers · Merchants · Sales Persons The incentive scheme and awareness campaign is designed as a "white-label" campaign in which all stakeholders are required to partner.

The implementation schedule, which has taken into consideration, the system configuration that will be required for the successful roll-out of the scheme, is hereby attached.

We solicit for the cooperation of all stakeholders for the successful implementation of the Electronic Payments Incentives Scheme (EPIS). 'Dipo Fatokun Director, Banking and Payments System Department

Implementation Schedule For The E-Payments Incentives Scheme

Merchants
S/N	Incentive	Description	Implementation Date
1.	Reduction of MSC	The	Merchants	Service	Charge	November 1, 2014
	(MSC) rate will be reduced from the
	current 1.25% or N2, 000 to 0.75%
	or a maximum of N1, 200 per
	transaction. The current sharing
	ratio among the various participants
	will be retained.
2.	Commission on	Free COT will be accelerated ahead	November 1, 2014
Turnover (COT)	of the dates on the Guide to Bank
Exemption	Charges, for merchants'. Therefore,
	all	electronic inflows into	the
	accounts of Merchants will	be
	exempted from the calculation of
	COT at the end of each month.
3	Mystery Shopper	NIBSS Plc will administer rewards to	November 1, 2014
and Recognition	merchants	through a	mystery
	shopper and recognition campaign.
4	Purchase with	NIBSS will collaborate with Deposit	January 1, 2015
Cash-back	Money Banks (DMBs) for the
	implementation of	POS
	functionalities that will permit
	merchants to offer cash-out services
	to their customers.

The following suite of incentives will be implemented:

Consumers
S/N	Incentive	Description	Implementation Date
1.	Point	Based	This will be adopted to reward	December 1, 2014
Reward System	cardholders, based on point grossed
	through frequency of card usage.
	NIBSS will implement the program,
	in conjunction with other service
	providers.
2.	Cash Refund	Refund of cash, based on card	On-going
	usage usage	is I	currently	being
	implemented by all banks.
3	December 1, 2014
Merchant	Merchants may leverage on the
Promotional	incentive scheme to	offer
Campaign	promotional gift items to their
	customers, based on the usage of
	electronic payments for transactions.

Salespersons

Salespersons will be encouraged to support electronic payments by having them enrolled on the tipping point schemes, through which they will earn points accrued over a period. Such points may be redeemed by the salespersons through various gift items or cash.

Efficiency Award

Payments System Services Providers (Banks, PTSPs, PSAD, PTSA, Switches, etc) across the value chain, will be encouraged through periodic awards, based on their innovation and efficiency. This program will be administered by NIBSS, in conjunction with other service providers.