If you have been seriously looking for genuine information on how to start a POS business in Nigeria, you just landed on the right page. This post will open your eyes to one of the straightforward money-making businesses you can start without breaking the bank.
People have been cashing out big-time silently providing POS business services to people. People are getting comfortable with withdrawing and depositing money into bank accounts at mobile money agents points. Who doesn’t like convenience?
It’s no longer new to everybody that technology is disrupting the financial services industry in Nigeria. In this era, most financial transactions can be made without visiting a bank.
The introduction of the new technological innovations in the country has broken so many agelong barriers in the financial sector in Nigeria. Gone are the days when no transaction can take place on weekends because of the closure of the bank.
In most cases, technology serves as a tool of egalitarianism—it breaks barriers and gives equal opportunities to every willing being.
The market-creating innovations in the financial sector in Nigeria have sprouted up many new generations of millionaire businessmen and women. People are utilizing the innovations to take their own share of financial services in the country.
The likes of Paga, Interswitch, Flutterwave, Paystack were not in existence 20 years ago. The paper airtime card is fading out as people are conveniently recharging their phone lines using bank USSD codes, bank mobile apps, mobile money agent apps, and other available fintech platforms in the country.
Providing mobile payment services in Nigeria is a good-looking business. Billions of naira exchange hands daily. People need convenient, fast and better solutions to solve their daily transactional problems. They don’t mind paying more for the service so long they are good with it.
People who provide POS services in Nigeria are mostly called mobile money agents. People rely heavily on them to make financial transactions every day.
It’s impossible and capital intensive for banks to have a bank branch in every nook-and-crannies of the country—this leaves many unbanked for years.
Some people don’t even bother to have a bank account nowadays because they can easily perform all transactions at a mobile money agent shop. Personally, I call these agents nano banks.
One of the measures that were put in place to curb the spread of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria was total lockdown—this puts all the physical financial activities in banks on hold. Imagine what could have happened if there was no disruption in the financial sector.
While in lockdown, we managed to visit POS shops to carry out our financial transactions, pay for our cable tv subscriptions, subscribe to our Internet plans, recharge our mobile phone lines, and purchase electricity units.
After the announcement of the first phase of gradual ease of lockdown, many banks in the country rethink how they are dispensing their daily financial services. Some banks MDs have audacious plans to retrench workers whom they feel technology has replaced their contribution to the service their delivery.
Without wasting your time, let’s get into the business.
What is a POS business?
A POS business provides banking services such as cash transfer, cash withdrawal, and utility bills payment to people. POS business charges people per transaction done at their point.
What is a POS machine?
POS (Point Of Sale) machine is an electronic machine that is mainly used to process card and non card financial transactions like withdrawals and deposits.
What are the things you need to start the business?
- A space/shop in a good location.
- Capital.
- Agency registration with payment company.
- A POS machine.
- A mobile phone.
How do people make money in the POS business in Nigeria?
People simply make money in the business by charging a fee per transaction. When you visit a POS business place, you’ll see the charging fees list clearly written for customers to see.
In most shops/places, they charge N100 to N150 on transactions from N500 to N10, 000. They charge N200 for transactions from N10, 500 to N 20, 000. And so on.
All POS businesses don’t charge the same fees on transactions. Each of them determines how much s/he wants to charge his/her customers. In places where there are few POS business points, they charge higher than where you have many of them. Same thing with places where there is no ATM.
Why should you consider starting a POS business in Nigeria
- The business is profitable almost everywhere in Nigeria especially in locations where there are no banks or busy areas where there are few ATMs.
- The business makes money on a daily basis.
- There is a market and customers for the business.
- The business is not complicated to start and straightforward to make money from.
- The business is sustainable.
- POS business can be added to any other location based business for an additional stream of income.
Step by step guide on how to start a POS business in Nigeria
Step 1: Get a shop/space in a good location
As you begin to plan for your business, the first thing to take a look at is where you want to position your business and how you will pay the rent for the shop/space. A good location is everything in the POS business in Nigeria.
One thing that I figure out first if I’m going into any business in Nigeria is knowing if the business is a location-based one or not. If it is, I ensure that I get a good place for the business because I know for a fact that the success of the business is largely dependent on the location.
You make more money in busy areas where there are business activities than in residential areas. Though, there are some residential areas where there is not a single bank branch, no ATM point. The residents won’t have any other option than to patronize POS businesses for their financial transactions.
Step 2: Get your capital ready
POS business is a money business. Apart from the expenses, you will make when starting the business, it’s a must to have some cash at hand and some money in the POS account to run the business. You need cash to give to customers who withdraw and money in the POS account for those who bring cash to make transfers to accounts.
As there’s no maximum amount you can start with; however with N200, 000, the business begins. As time goes on and your customer base is increasing, you will need to have more cash on the ground to meet up with the demand. As it’s bad for the business not to have cash when customers come for transactions.
Step 3: Register with a payment company
Gone are the days when only banks gave POS machines out to vendors. Now things have changed. There are many payment companies and financial institutions that make it easy for people to register and have POS machines for business in Nigeria now.
There are many of them truly but only a few ones are reliable in terms of network and fast service delivery. Customers don’t like to waste their time at POS shops in Nigeria. So, you have to ensure that you register with good ones.
Every company has its own requirements and terms & conditions for registering a vendor. You can have all the information about the registration by visiting their websites or calling their customer care lines.
If you want to be using your mobile phone to transfer money to bank accounts for customers, to the best of my knowledge, for now, Palmpay is good for that. Their office is located at 20, Opebi Rd, Opebi-Ikeja, Lagos. Their customer care line is 0704 483 4390.
For POS machines, Moniepoint by TeamApt is good according to my findings. Their office is situated at 12, Wole Ariyo, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos, Nigeria. You can send mail to them at info@teamapt.com. You can as well reach them on their customer care line: +2347042870756.
Once you are done with the registrations and get trained on how to use the POS machine by the company, your business is almost ready.
Step 4: Market and advertise your business
Finally, you can now begin to market and advertise your business in the location where you are. You need to design banners and signboards for people to be aware of the business you are running.
Another marketing tactic that I think a lot of people don’t use is advertising with a loudspeaker. You can get a rechargeable mobile and medium-sized speaker, record these words with a serious loud voice: “ Withdraw and transfer money here now. Our fee is cheap”. Insert the memory card into the speaker and play the voice recording nonstop. It will drive people’s attention to your place. And the more people you can reach, the better for the business.
Finally
I believe with this information, anyone can start and run a lucrative POS business in Nigeria effortlessly. The road-path of any business is not smooth. Everyone gets results based on the application of his/her idea and actions taken with it. Start and hustle now.
Do you have questions to ask or contributions to make? Please, leave comments in the tab below. I would really love to hear from you.
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