Concerns Mount over TSA Payment Infrastructure

 

Some stakeholders in Nigeria’s banking system have expressed concern over the safety of the payment platform for the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

A senior bank official pointed out that Remita, the e-payment application solely used for receiving and making payments of government’s revenue under the TSA is hosted outside the country, which according to him exposes the country’s revenue to dangers. Remita was developed by SystemSpecs Nigeria Limited.

The banker who preferred to remain anonymous, also revealed that since the full implementation of the TSA in September, financial institutions have not been finding it easy with Remita, arguing that SystemSpecs does not have the capacity to run retail transactions.

He pointed out: “We have about N6 trillion in government revenues and one thing that is of more concern to me is that Remita operates in the cloud. What that means is that they are paying for information technology services on machines that are located outside the country. If they are the ones handling federal government’s revenue and their infrastructure is in the cloud, my fear is that people can be sniffing the country’s revenue or have access to them. Systempecs does not have its physical infrastructure in Nigeria.

"Also, the transaction charge of one percent for each transaction is also a big concern and we are worried that government has created a monopoly for a private company in Nigeria to handle government's payments and and collections."

But the Managing Director, SystemSpecs, Mr. Tony Obaro, while speaking in a chat with ThisDay, defended his firm’s e-payment platform, saying that since the implementation of the TSA, some institutions have been looking for excuses not to comply. According to Obaro, a lot of banks “see the TSA as a threat to their business.”

He, however, agreed that the technology for Remita is hosted on the cloud, adding that the company has outlined a programme to move it into the country.

“The truth of it is that technology is changing how all of us do business and everybody needs to wake up and realign to the new changes that are coming up. We know that some banks are not happy because the federal government has asked them to move funds to the Central Bank of Nigeria and everybody is looking for anything to complain about why the policy shouldn’t move forward.

“Yes, we are hosting in the cloud, which again is the general direction of efficiency in business. The issue about security and safety is just to confuse people who really don’t know. In terms of security, we have a very solid security base. Why are we hosting outside? When we look at the level of infrastructure in Nigeria today, the reality is that we are still struggling in Nigeria in terms of infrastructure and we already have a plan that as things are improving, we gradually begin to move things to be domiciled in Nigeria.

“But these are not things that can be done overnight and we need to do it in such a way that it does not disrupt the quality of services to our customers. Where the physical data is, is not a problem, but we have started a programme whereby we would soon fully migrate to Nigeria,” Obaro added.

He also dismissed the insinuation that the federal had created a monopoly with only SystemSpecs handling payments under the TSA, saying that his firm competed with major service providers.

“We have been working privately for four years and many people didn’t understand the full power behind our technology and now that if has been accepted generally, they are now saying we are a monopoly,” he noted.