The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has mandated all banks, Payment Solution Service Providers (PSSPs), and licensed operators within the Nigerian payment network to upgrade to the ISO 20022 messaging standard for payments and settlement, and to implement mandatory geo-tagging of payment terminals.
In a circular published on its website and signed by Rakiya Yusuf, director of the Payment System Supervision Department, the apex bank explained that the upgrade is essential to achieving Nigeria’s payments objective of ensuring standardised, high-quality data.
Referencing earlier circulars issued on July 17 and September 23, 2020, the CBN noted that all licensed operators must align with SWIFT’s global migration timelines.
“All payment transaction messages exchanged domestically or internationally must be formatted in ISO 20022 in line with CBN and SWIFT specifications.
“All Institutions shall ensure complete and accurate population of mandatory data elements, including payer/payee identifiers, merchant/agent identifiers, and transaction metadata,” it reads.
The CBN has set October 31, 2025, as the deadline for full compliance.
Additionally, the regulator mandated that all existing and newly deployed payment terminals must have native geolocation services enabled, with Double-Frequency GPS receivers for reliable tracking.
Terminals must also be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA), providing accurate latitude/longitude coordinates of merchants’s or agents’ business locations.
Operators are further required to ensure all Point of Sale (PoS) terminals and applications are duly certified by the National Central Switch to meet the prescribed standards.
Existing terminals must be geo-tagged within 60 days of this circular, while new terminals must be geo-tagged before certification and activation.
The CBN announced that compliance validation exercises will begin on October 20, 2025.
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