The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a new directive mandating all participants in the country’s payment ecosystem to complete migration to the ISO 20022 messaging standard and implement mandatory geo-tagging of payment terminals by October 31, 2025.
The apex bank issued the reminder in a circular published on its website on Tuesday, August 25, 2025, noting that the transition aligns with SWIFT’s global migration timeline and aims to enhance payment data quality and interoperability across Nigeria’s financial system.
The directive applies to Deposit Money Banks, Microfinance Banks, Mobile Money Operators, Switching and Processing Companies, Payment Terminal Service Providers, Payment Solution Service Providers, and Super Agents, among others.
ISO 20022 is widely regarded as the global benchmark for payment messaging, enabling richer, structured, and standardised data exchange. The CBN stated:
“All payment transaction messages exchanged domestically or internationally must be formatted in ISO 20022 in line with CBN and SWIFT specifications.”
Institutions are also required to ensure accurate population of mandatory data elements, including: Payer and payee identifiers, merchant and agent identifiers, transaction metadata
In addition to ISO 20022 adoption, all payment terminals must be geo-tagged to strengthen transaction traceability and enhance fraud prevention.
The CBN emphasised that strict compliance is mandatory, warning operators to meet the timeline or risk regulatory sanctions.
