Nigeria’s Central Bank Introduces PSD2-Style Open Banking

This week, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) approved operational guidelines for open banking, making Nigeria the first country in Africa to do so.

This is the end of a journey toward open banking that began in June 2017. CBN had already put out rules for open banking at the start of 2021.

Sterling Bank, KPMG, PwC, EY, Paystack, Teamapt, Wallet Africa, and OnePipe were among the first people to support open banking in Nigeria. Now, companies like Mono, Switch, Lendsqr, Palmpay, Carbon, and Trium are also part of the group.

The head of the Payments System Management Department at the CBN, Musa Jimoh, said:

“The adoption of Open Banking in Nigeria will foster the sharing of customer-permissioned data between banks and third-party firms to enable the building of customer-focused products and services.”

Millions of people, like the many people in Nigeria who don’t have bank accounts, should be able to get better access to local financial services and have more ways to get money. Within the published guidelines CBN stated that open banking is “aimed at enhancing efficiency, competition and access to financial services in Nigeria.”