THE IMPACT OF THE CBN CASHLESS POLICY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FINANCIAL SECTOR OF NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

Financial transactions involving the use and movement of physical cash are gradually declining with the introduction of the CBN’s Cashless policy. This development has been of great concern to economist, the government of Nigeria and financial institutions. This aim of this study is to evaluate financial and economic transactions under the new CBN’s cashless policy and how the development has enhanced the financial sector of the economy of Nigeria. Concerning methodology, both primary and secondary data were used for the study. Respondents mostly bank employees and customers were issued well design and structured questionnaires to effectively examine the new developments brought about by the introduction of the cashless policy with respect to how financial transactions are being managed and the overall impact the cashless policy has had on the development of the financial sector of the economy of Nigeria. Hypotheses were formulated to test assumptions and claims generated from the study. The T-test was employed to test the statistical significance of the estimated parameter at a 5% level of significance. R-squared was used to test the measure of goodness of fit of the models developed for the study. Moreover, F-statistics was also used to test the joint statistical significance of the explanatory variable and the dependent variable. The study concludes that both cashless technological money i.e e-money and cash currency should be in the economy simultaneously, e-money alone cannot operate successfully in an economy except the few privileged will oppress the majority who are less-priviledged

The development of innovative cashless banking has the potential to transform economic activity and achieve developmental goals. If an effective cashless banking system can be developed and the below recommendations are carried out then it will have desired impact on the Nigerian economy. Therefore, trusted central banks and governments must play a key role in promoting the development of popular forms of e-banking channels.