A total of 557,083,712 electronic-payment transactions valued at N34.02 trillion were recorded in selected banks across the country in the first quarter, 2019, Nigeria’s statistics bureau has said.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said this in a report on Selected Banking Sector Data: Sectorial Breakdown of Credit, ePayment Channels and Staff Strength data posted on its website.

It said Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) Instant Payment (NIP) transactions dominated the volume of transactions recorded with 232,816,102 volume of NIP transactions valued at N24.17 trillion were recorded within the period under review.

It, however, said that in terms of credit to the private sector, the total value of credit allocated by the banks stood at N15.21 trillion as at first quarter of 2019.

It said the Oil and Gas and Manufacturing sectors got credit allocation of N3.49 trillion and N2.23 trillion respectively to record the highest credit allocation as at the period under review. Also, the total number of staffers of the banks increased by 0.33 per cent quarter-on-quarter from 104,669 in fourth quarter, 2018 to 105,017 in first quarter, 2019.