The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed all banks, mobile money operators, super agents, and other licensed players in the payments ecosystem to complete migration to the ISO 20022 payment messaging standard and geo-tag all point-of-sale (PoS) terminals by October 31, 2025.
The apex bank said the move, contained in a circular signed by the Director of Payments System Supervision, Dr. Rakiya Yusuf, is aimed at aligning Nigeria’s payment systems with international standards while curbing rising fraud cases linked to rogue PoS operators.
According to the CBN, all domestic and international payment transaction messages must henceforth be formatted in ISO 20022, ensuring high-quality data with accurate identifiers for payers, payees, merchants, and agents. It added that this would improve transparency, strengthen compliance, and close loopholes exploited by fraudsters.
On geo-tagging, the CBN mandated that all existing and newly deployed PoS devices must have native geolocation services with double-frequency GPS receivers. Each device is to be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA), capturing precise latitude and longitude coordinates of merchants or agents.
“All in-scope institutions must complete migration activities and be fully compliant not later than October 31, 2025,” the circular stated, warning that terminals not routed through a PTSA will not be permitted to transact.
It further directed that all PoS terminals and applications must be certified by the National Central Switch, with Android OS v10 set as the minimum requirement for compatibility. A 10-meter geofence around registered business locations will also apply to all merchant activities, with geo-location data captured at the point of transaction.
The CBN added that existing terminals must be geo-tagged within 60 days of the circular, while new terminals must be tagged before activation. Compliance validation exercises will begin on October 20, 2025.
