CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso

The Central Bank of Nigeria, under its Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, recently extended the Payment System Vision roadmap to 2028, reaffirming its commitment to modernising the country’s payments infrastructure and strengthening cybersecurity. The renewed push for contactless payments, revised agent-banking guidelines, and improved integration among switching companies are opening up seamless opportunities across the payments market. In parallel, Nigeria’s digital-finance transformation continues to gather momentum, driven by the CBN’s twin priorities of encouraging innovation while safeguarding stability within the payments ecosystem. Nigeria is recording notable gains in expanding its e-payment infrastructure and delivering more seamless payment services to citizens. More than 12 million contactless payment cards are now in circulation, while the CBN-instituted regulatory sandbox has grown to over 40 fintech innovators, allowing for safe experimentation and responsible scaling of new digital-finance solutions. The revised agent-banking guidelines have tightened anti-money-laundering controls, including the geo-fencing of high-risk areas, while strengthening consumer protection at the last mile. At the same time, improved integration across switching companies has moved Nigeria closer to seamless domestic interoperability. CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, recently disclosed that, supported by these measures, Nigeria now ranks among Africa’s most advanced digital payments markets, boasting a vibrant fintech ecosystem that has produced eight of the continent’s nine unicorns. He noted that by mid-2025, leading fintech applications had surpassed 10 million downloads each, with one exceeding 50 million downloads, reflecting deep and widespread consumer adoption.