The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed all banks, mobile money operators, super agents, and other licensed players in the payments ecosystem to fully migrate to the ISO 20022 payment messaging standard and geo-tag all point-of-sale (POS) terminals by 31 October 2025.
The regulator explained that the move, which aligns Nigeria’s financial system with international standards, is designed to strengthen payment security and curb rising fraud in the country’s electronic payments landscape.
According to the CBN, fraudulent activities by rogue POS operators and misuse of payment devices have created vulnerabilities that require stronger surveillance. Geo-tagging and standardised messaging, it said, are vital to restoring trust in Nigeria’s retail payment system.
In a circular signed by Dr Rakiya Yusuf, Director of the Payments System Supervision Department at the CBN, the bank emphasised that all domestic and cross-border payment messages must now adopt the ISO 20022 format. This, it said, would ensure standardised, high-quality data and accurate identifiers for payers, payees, merchants, and agents.
The CBN noted that adopting the international standard would improve transparency, enhance compliance, and make it harder for fraudsters to exploit weaknesses in payment messaging systems.
On geo-tagging, the bank mandated that all new and existing POS terminals must have native geolocation services enabled with double-frequency GPS receivers to ensure precise location data. Each device must be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA), showing accurate latitude and longitude coordinates of the merchant or agent.
“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,” the circular stated.
It added: “All operators (PTSAs, PTSPs, PTADs, Acquirers) are to ensure their POS terminals and applications are duly certified by the National Central Switch to align with the listed standards. As part of the certification process, all payment terminals must have the National Central Switch SDK for geolocation monitoring and geofencing implemented within the libraries of the POS application.”
The CBN further directed that all terminals must run on at least Android OS v10 to ensure compatibility with the National Central Switch Geolocation SDK. The SDK must be initialised at the registered business location, with a 10-metre geofence permitted for merchant activity. Geo-location data must also be captured at the start of every transaction and included in the reporting message.
The circular warned that terminals not routed through a PTSA will not be permitted to process transactions. It also stated that all existing terminals must be geo-tagged within 60 days of the directive, while new terminals must be geo-tagged before certification and activation.
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