4. Industry trend

The report analyses the Nigerian internet market, its expected growth levels beyond 2007. While outlining this growth to continue, it examines the trends and patterns internet usage would assume to include among other things, online transactions. This would not only enhance the economy but would foster latent opportunities that will develop from the new market. It’s a tool that will be used to enhance innovation, service delivery and greater profits.

4. Industry long term prospects

During the last few years, as for globaltechforum.eiu.com, there has been a rapid growth in Nigeria in the sphere of electronic-cash-transfer services such as Western Union, Moneygram and Travelex. So today, Nigerian citizens can not only pay, withdraw or transfer funds anywhere in the country, but also make purchases with their e-cards thanks to such e-payment providers as MasterCard, InterSwitch, VisaCard and e-transact. The recent growth and development of Western shopping malls in the country is also very important. The area of e-commerce that has developed in Nigeria mostly is e-banking. Today the majority of the Nigerian banks offer online, real-time banking services. Moreover, banks that cannot offer these services to people are losing their customers significantly. Online banking systems have already become ordinary for Nigerian customers as they are offered the flexibility of operating their accounts in any branch of their bank’s network. The online service lets customers conduct a variety of banking activities in any location of a certain bank. Besides other main services, deposits, withdrawals and the issuing of drafts can also be included. Banks are also increasingly looking to card-based payment solutions beyond the widely accepted electronic purse, including debit and credit cards, though these are slow to take off. The service that is likely to be developed considerably in Nigeria is an ATM system. A few banks started the ATM Consortium in 2003 to set up ATMs across the country.

Besides, e-commerce in Nigeria has been launched not so long ago, thus the legislation concerning compliance and enforcement has not been completed. As globaltechforum.eiu.com says, an independent regulatory body that promotes growth in information and communication technologies in the country is the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). Its present tax laws do not specifically classify e-commerce transactions in Nigeria. There is also not any specific legislation concerning consumer protection and e-commerce in the country. As for the intellectual property and e-commerce, there is no specific legislation as well, though Nigeria is a signatory to six international treaties relating to intellectual property. Regarding to the possibility of foreign investments in this sector, present legislation stipulates that businesses wishing to provide Internet services must be 70% locally owned. . 

Regarding the on-line shopping in Nigeria it’s important to say a couple of words about PUSA (Pasport USA) company that have allegedly solved many problems which traoubled online shoppers in Nigeria, with the introduction of an online shopping card. The shopping card, which was implemented in the collaboration with MasterCard, enable Nigerian customers to unrestricted access to more than 3 million online stores in the USA, letting Nigerians order their desired goods online, and get them delivered directly to their house in just four days. PUSA shopping card enable Nigerians to get trough the Internet whatever they wish : from simple items such as books, DVDs to the more complicated models of automobile like the BMW. The PUSA card is packaged with the modern e-security technology to guard against Internet fraud. The partnership with a courier services company effectively eliminates the popular Shipping Clerk scam. Moreover, users can enjoy the shortest turn-around time on all inquiries made and regular updates on the delivery status of goods ordered. So Nigerian consumers are getting an ability to have direct contact with retailers in any part of the world. Nigerian businesses also claims to be able to take advantage of the global reach, to open new and profitable markets for local goods and services.

Well, besides Nigeria is far behind other countries in providing technology at an affordable cost to its population, it’s now moving ahead to reach the level of technological development most industrial countries have. Just a percentage growth of Internet users drew us the picture of the galloping Nigerian development.