Aba Routing Number Directory

Nigeria: Online Content and Services Begins to Make Inroads Despite the Lack ...

London — Nigerian bandwidth is improving but ever so slowly. There is no sign of a broadband strategy to power this process forward. However, despite this unpromising soil for growth, there are a number of interesting start-ups in the online content and services space that are beginning to establish themselves. Russell Southwood tries to read the tea leaves in a country where data is hard to come by.

At STM1 level, international bandwidth is now down to US$225-250 per meg and will continue to drop once WACS and ACE become operational. There also some signs that up-times are improving on national routes, particularly as carriers fight it out to deliver international bandwidth from Glo and Main One.

Slow improvements on the data access front

However one operator who buys on this route says that carriers still only achieve around 95% up-time. Nigeria has three big cities where the Internet needs to establish a critical mass - Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt - which is which is why performance on routes like these is critical. Regular use will not become a fact of life if the service is not reliable to the customer.

The key barrier now is the high cost of delivering this bandwidth at a wholesale level. One operator told us that wholesale capacity delivered in Lagos cost US$500 against US$2,000 in due to high national backbone charges and the same story came back from a range of different people. There are five carriers on this route but magically they all seem to offer broadly similar rates.

Among others, Glo has bought down retail customer data prices by 50% over past year. Prices will continue to go down as volumes rise. One operator reported a 60-75% jump in data use and another told us that there had been a five fold increase in data requirements for a well-known smartphone. According to Main One, the University of Nigeria had bought a 45 meg connection and is already bursting out of it. But as one interviewee told us:"Internet is still a relatively expensive experience."

The use of smartphones and feature phones continues to rise. One of the larger mobile operators already has 60% of its subscribers on S40/Java devices. Smartphones are no more than 10% but this is a small percentage of a huge number of subscribers.

60% of Glo's 17 m active and non-active users have S40/Java devices. Smartphones are no more than 10% and many are bought in the grey market. Another large mobile operator says it 25% of its subscribers on feature phones. Banky Ojutalayo, Executive Director, Starfish Mobile pointed out that:"People continuously change phones, maybe 2-3 times in 12 months for reasons of fashion and theft." No right-minded middle class Nigerian has less than 2-3 phones.

Creation of Check Routing Numerals

Have you ever enquired what that 9 digit numeral is in the bottom left area of all bank notes? So many others have this question. In point of fact, almost 50,000 people search for routing number related key terms in search engines every calendar month.

The routing numeral is likewise referred to as a transit figure or aba number. It is comprised of a 9 digit codification and it is employed in the United States. The individual aim of this number is to determine the banking company or financial organisation from which the cash referred to on the cheque is to be withdrawn.

With so many depository financial institutions in existence nowadays, this number is really helpful to the depository financial institution taking a deposition of a check in deciding where they need to get the money. It was formerly a difficult labor to determine where checks were written from. In fact, this difficulty has historically been exploited by crooks to commit fraud against banks.

Consequently, this numerical system was developed to streamline and clear up the process for clearing houses and for banks. This has helped in the honest conveyance of money between depository financial institutions on behalf of their customers for years now.

This system has even been developed. The serialized number makes it easier for information processing systems to understand and employ the data and as recently as 2004 it has been used to transmit electronic bank checks often referred to as echecks or EFTs (electronic funds transfer). This started out with the passage of the Check 21 Act which has helped to reduce the reliance on paper bank checks by making it allowable to make digital copies of bank checks.

This useful number system dates all the way back to 1910 when the American Bankers Association (ABA) devised it to help interbank relations. It has been utilised ever since to help the banking industry to work smoothly.

Can you conceive of trying to keep track of over 26 thousand different banks that issue cheques? As a banker you would be swept over with work trying to determine where to get your money! This is exactly the trouble that the ABA has successfully helped to solve since 1910.

About 26,895 routing numbers are actively used in the USA today. This is because every financial organisation must have one by law. That means that every depository financial institution must have an ABA number supplied to them before they open their doors.

Thomson savings directory

Rand McNally international bankers directory, The bankers blue book. International directory of banks and bankers

ABA banking journal

The U.S. savings institutions directory

NBS special publication