Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed all commercial banks, microfinance banks, mobile money operators, and other licensed stakeholders in the payments ecosystem to fully migrate to the ISO 20022 standard for payment messaging by October 31.
The directive was contained in a circular signed on Tuesday by the Director of the Payments System Supervision Department, Rakiya Yusuf and made available to Newsmen in Abuja.
The bank noted that ISO 20022, a global framework for financial messaging, has become the international benchmark in line with the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) migration timeline.
The apex bank announced that compliance validation exercises will commence on October 20. It stressed that all payment transaction messages, whether domestic or international, must adhere to the ISO 20022 format in accordance with CBN and SWIFT specifications.
“All institutions shall ensure complete and accurate population of mandatory data elements, including payer and payee identifiers, merchant and agent details, as well as transaction metadata,” the circular read.
The CBN mandated that all payment terminals be equipped with native geolocation services, supported by dual-frequency GPS receivers, to ensure reliable geolocation accuracy. Terminals must also be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA) and tagged with precise latitude and longitude coordinates of the business or service location.
Author: Maureen Ikpeama