The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has granted two Nigerian firms, Chams Access Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of Chams Plc, and Cooperative Support Services, licenses to operate Independent Automated Teller Machine consortium services.
 A statement from the firm described the development as a continuation of plans by the apex bank to remove the ownership and control of ATMs located outside banking premises (off-site ATMs) from commercial banks and hand them over to independent firms.
The CBN, in a circular issued on April 8, 2009, had set the deadline for June 30, 2009 for banks to hands-off control of the off-site ATMs and invited bids from interested firms to take over control of the machines.
However, it became apparent to the apex bank that this date was not feasible and subsequently moved the deadline to March 31, 2010. The CBN, through another circular issued on August 27, 2009, subsequently stated that the extension of the deadline became necessary in order to ensure success of the exercise and proper commencement of operations of the emerging consortia.
The circular said the apex bank was taking appropriate steps to facilitate the appointment of a number of ATM consortia to effect the current policy of redeploying offsite ATMs, adding that it had received applications from some registered financial companies in this regard.
Besides Chams and CSS, other firms that applied include Nigeria‘s leading transaction switching firm, Interswitch Nigeria Limited, Computer Warehouse Group, Value card Nigeria and XL Management Nigeria Limited. Others are International Payment Devices Limited, Infotech Nigeria and Joe Hans Technologies Limited.
A copy of the license issued by the CBN, dated December 14, 2009, said the firms, Chams and CSS, had been granted Approval-in-Principle to each of the firms to operate as ATM consortium in Nigeria. It added that it would, however, conduct a post-Approval-in-Principle visit to the firms in April 2010 to ensure their readiness and compliance with our requirements.
The statement added that a major reason for the issuance of the new licenses was the failure of ATM-Consortium Limited to effectively deploy machines in sufficient numbers across the country for use. Out of the 8,567 ATMs installed in Nigeria so far, ATM Consortium accounts for just 145, which translates to 1.7 per cent.
So far, United Bank for Africa Plc leads in ATM deployment with 1,577 and is followed by Intercontinental Bank Plc with 1,327 and First Bank with 1,065. Given the fact that approximately 60 per cent of ATMs installed are at non-banking locations, ATM Consortium still accounts for a meagre eight per cent of installed ATMs, a situation that means that banks are still in-charge of over 97 per cent of non-banking site machines.
The Head, Cooperate Affairs, Chams Plc, Mr. Idowu Logile, confirmed the issuance of the license to he firm by CBN, noting that the development represented a major accomplishment for the firm. He added that the firm had been in the forefront of electronic payment in Nigeria and that it had planned to deploy over 5,000ATMs across the country within a short period.
He added that besides the ATM machines, Chams had also secured $26m funding for the deployment of additional 40,000 points of transaction terminals across Nigeria. He said these new additions would make electronic payment machines much closer to Nigerians in the country.

(Daily Champion, January 3, 2010.)