When was the last time you walked up to an ATM, put in your card, and actually got cash? Been a while, right? Maybe months ago—or even years? Chances are you don’t even bother with the ATM anymore. These days, when you need cash, you probably head straight to the nearest POS agent in your neighborhood.
Across Nigeria, especially in urban areas, POS agents are everywhere. Just look around, and you’ll spot someone with one of those small, mostly blue, POS machines, ready to help you out—for a fee. Need N5,000? That’ll be around N100. Need N10,000? You’ll pay N200. So now, we’re paying just to get our own money—the money we deposited in our bank accounts, money we used to be able to withdraw from ATMs at no extra cost.
