Nigeria spends $5.1bn on cash management yearly —MasterCard
ON the back of recently rebased Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a study by US-based financial payment solutions firm, Mastercard, has revealed that Nigeria spends an estimated $5.1 billion (N800bn) yearly on printing and handling cash. The study explains that countries across the globe spend an average of 1 percent of their GDP yearly to fund minting of currency notes and logistics involving handling, processing and shipment. “MasterCard advisers have done studies in many countries and found out that the cost of cash to an economy is about one per cent of the country’s GDP,” Ventures Africa quoted Mrs Omokehinde Ojomuyide, Vice President, West Africa, MasterCard as having said. “The studies show that countries spend from 0.5 to 1.5 per cent of their GDP,” she said. This implies that Africa’s largest economy, following the recently devised GDP figures of $510 billion, spends an average of $5.1 billion annually on cash logistics, as $5.1 billion represents 1 ...