The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a new directive mandating all banks and licensed operators in the country’s payments ecosystem to fully migrate to the ISO 20022 messaging standard and implement compulsory geo-tagging of payment terminals.
In a circular released on August 25, 2025, the apex bank said the move aligns Nigeria with global payment messaging reforms being championed by SWIFT and is designed to standardize data quality, improve transaction transparency, and strengthen payment system oversight.
ISO 20022 Migration
The CBN noted that all payment transaction messages, whether domestic or international, must henceforth be formatted in line with ISO 20022 specifications. Institutions are also required to ensure complete and accurate reporting of key data elements such as payer and payee identifiers, merchant details, and transaction metadata.
The regulator gave all deposit money banks, microfinance banks, mobile money operators, switching companies, payment service providers, and super agents until October 31, 2025 to complete migration activities and achieve full compliance.
Mandatory Geo-Tagging of Terminals
In addition, the CBN directed that all existing and newly deployed Point-of-Sale (PoS) and other payment terminals must be geo-tagged and integrated with location-monitoring capabilities.
According to the circular, every terminal must:
Be equipped with double-frequency GPS for reliable location services.
Be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA) along with accurate latitude and longitude coordinates of the merchant or agent’s place of business.
Integrate the National Central Switch Software Development Kit (SDK) for geolocation and geofencing.
Run on a minimum of Android version 10 to ensure compatibility.
Capture location data at the point of transaction, which must be included in the transaction payload.
Furthermore, CBN specified that merchant transactions are only valid within a 10-meter radius of their registered business address. Terminals not routed through a PTSA will be barred from processing transactions.
All existing terminals are required to be geo-tagged within 60 days of the circular (by October 25, 2025), while new terminals must be geo-tagged before activation.
Enforcement Timeline
The apex bank announced that compliance validation exercises will commence from October 20, 2025, ahead of the ISO 20022 final migration deadline.
The directive, signed by Dr. Rakiya O. Yusuf, Director of the CBN’s Payments System Supervision Department, underscores the regulator’s tightening oversight of Nigeria’s growing digital payments industry, which has witnessed rapid adoption of electronic channels in recent years.
Analysts say the measures will not only bring Nigeria in line with global financial messaging standards but also curb fraud and improve transaction traceability in the fast-expanding payments ecosystem.
