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Recent data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) showed that Nigerian point-of-sale devices failed in 15.33% of transactions (around 66,441 transactions), which illustrates the need for a more reliable form of payments like cryptocurrency.

The Managing Director of NIBSS, Niyi Ajao, described how the problem arose from the turn-around-time not being aligned between all parties necessary to conduct a transaction.

“The total turn-around-time had been configured at 15 seconds in agreement with banks and processors. However, delayed responses from issuers after this timeout in recent times could cause authorized debits not to return to the terminal before the set TAT.”

The involved parties have already attempted to fix the issue by increasing the turn-around-time from 15 seconds to 20 seconds and even to 45 seconds. Additional anger was caused when some individuals had the transactions denied at the point-of-sale, but still saw the money taken from their bank accounts. These consumers were eventually able to get their money back, but after a rigorous experience.

Dash provides an alternative solution

Dash is able to offer consumers and merchants locked-in transactions in less than 1.3 seconds for less than a penny with the new automatic InstantSend, which is much better than what Nigerians are currently experiencing. Dash has already seen adoption in Nigeria with different merchants being on-boarded and new educational programs launched. Additionally, since each user controls their own private keys when spending Dash, they do not have to worry about unauthorized charges and going through the difficulties of getting their money back, which many Nigerians unfortunately had to experience with this latest fiat payment fiasco.

The value of Dash being an independent payment network also recently demonstrated its value via Dash Text in Venezuela. While the country was experiencing widespread blackouts that disabled multiple payment services, including some cryptocurrency terminals, Dash Text enabled Venezuelans to still make purchases.

Underestimated value of payment networks

1/ These are the largest payment firms by market cap (Q1)

Visa $343 bil

Mastercard $241 bil

Paypal $122 bil

Amex $92 bil



In the payment industry, you want to be the network. Other firms - security, hardware, software, etc - all COMBINED are worth less than these four firms. — Ryan Taylor (@RTaylor05) April 3, 2019

Financial payment networks play a major role in our daily lives, and yet, many do not notice its importance, nor the lack of competition in the sector. The top four payment networks command a larger share of nearly all other aspects of payment technology combined, according to Ryan Taylor, CEO of Dash Core Group. Nevertheless, this provides a great opportunity for disruption to benefit consumers that want a cheaper, faster, and more reliable way of spending their money.

Additionally, these payment services still experience difficulties operating, even in developed countries, illustrating that they are not always as reliable as they like to claim. Wells Fargo has famously experienced difficulties keeping their promises to their customers, including system outages. As consumers continue to get frustrated with the traditional financial system, they will start looking for better offerings. Dash is building the infrastructure, both via code and merchant adoption, to be ready for the day when more consumers are ready to switch to a more efficient payment alternative.