When a market woman in Onitsha taps her phone to collect payment for a bag of tomatoes, she probably does not think about monetary policy or digital ecosystems. She thinks about whether the transfer will work, how long it will take, and whether she will be charged a fee that eats into her already-thin margins.
That woman, and the millions of Nigerians like her, are exactly who the Central Bank of Nigeria had in mind on Monday when it unveiled the Nigeria Payments System Vision 2028 (PSV 2028) at a high-powered gathering in Abuja, bringing together the country’s most senior financial regulators, bank chiefs, fintech founders, and development partners.
The message from the top was clear, urgent, and unusually personal.
“One of the fastest ways to take a large number of people out of poverty is through an efficient payments system,” CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso told the audience. “So let us not look at it lightly.”
How Far Nigeria Has Come
To understand why Monday’s launch matters, it helps to understand how far Nigeria has already come.
Sterling Bank MD Abubakar Suleiman, who moderated the event’s panel session, painted a vivid picture of the transformation he has witnessed in his decades in the industry. He recalled a time when physical instruments had to be carried — by hand, sometimes by bicycle — to the Central Bank of Nigeria just to complete a single day’s transaction.
Moniepoint founder Tosin Eniolorunda, who has spent 34 years in the industry, was equally emotional. “I feel very emotional because if you see the journey we started to where we are in the country,” he said, “it is remarkable.”
Today, Nigeria processes millions of digital transactions daily. The country has produced several fintech unicorns — billion-dollar companies born from Nigerian ingenuity — and its instant payment infrastructure is, by many measures, among the best in the world. As Suleiman put it: “With the exception of perhaps China and one or two others, Nigeria is probably the best.”
But Monday was not a celebration. It was a call to action.
54% on 4G, 80% Without Fibre: The Connectivity Gap Holding Millions Back
For all Nigeria’s digital progress, a stubborn problem remains: millions of Nigerians still cannot reliably access the system.
Dr Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), laid out the numbers plainly. Only 54% of Nigerians currently access mobile internet via 4G — yet 4G coverage already reaches over 80% of the country. The gap, he explained, is largely a device problem. Millions of Nigerians are still using phones that cannot support modern digital services.
“The future belongs to 4G and 5G,” Maida said bluntly, adding that the NCC is actively phasing out 3G networks — a move that will force financial service providers to upgrade their POS machines and ATMs accordingly.
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He also pointed to fibre connectivity as the deeper fix. Currently, roughly 80% of Nigeria’s internet service providers are concentrated in Lagos and Abuja. The NCC is restructuring the broadband market to create a wholesale framework that would allow smaller providers in Maiduguri, Kano, Akwa Ibom and beyond to distribute fibre capacity more affordably.
Tosin Eniolorunda went further, making a passionate case that the government must actively put smartphones into the hands of ordinary Nigerians. “Without smartphones, we cannot have effective delivery of this vision,” he said. “We need to phase out feature phones.”
₦15 to Move ₦5,000: Why Transaction Fees Are the Enemy of Inclusion
One of the most pointed conversations of the day centred on something every Nigerian who has ever used a bank app or POS machine understands: the frustration of paying to move your own money.
Mrs Uche Uzoechina, MD/CEO of the Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility (SANEF), described the problem in terms that needed no translation.
“A market woman wants to transact ₦5,000. She is told she must pay ₦15 in fees. Her response? She will put her money under the mattress.”
That is not irrationality, she argued — it is a perfectly logical response from someone already struggling to save. “If we claim to be driving financial inclusion but the very people we are driving it for cannot afford to participate, then we have failed as a country.”
Eniolorunda called for zero transfer fees — or at the very minimum, dramatically reduced ones. He also pushed for financial data to be zero-rated entirely. “I should not be unable to make a payment because I have run out of data,” he said. “When a transaction is financial in nature, the data used for it should not attract a charge to the end user. Several countries have already done this. Nigeria must catch up.”
The CBN governor appeared to agree in spirit. He described payment infrastructure not as a financial utility but as “a strategic national asset” – something that belongs to every Nigerian, not just those who can afford the access fees.
Fraud Has No Borders — But Nigeria’s Response Is Catching Up
While the vision celebrates Nigeria’s digital strides, it also confronts a growing threat. Payment fraud in Nigeria is no longer a local problem — it is a cross-border, cross-sector challenge that no single regulator can tackle alone.
Dr Maida described the experience of tracing a fraudulent transaction, only to find the trail leading outside Nigeria’s borders – and hitting a wall. “You begin tracing a connection, and before long, you have crossed our borders — only to hit a wall, unable to proceed without the cooperation of sister agencies and foreign counterparts.”
This is precisely why PSV 2028 places collaboration at its centre, not just among Nigerian institutions but also with regional and international partners. The SEC’s director general, Dr Emomotimi Agama, echoed this, noting that without a working payment system, the capital market itself cannot function. “Without payments, there can be no delivery of securities,” he said. “There is no way we can function effectively without seamless collaboration.”
The CBN and NCC had already signalled this direction earlier this year, signing a Memorandum of Understanding to enable real-time verification of mobile number status across banks and fintech firms, a direct weapon against SIM-swap fraud, one of the fastest-growing forms of financial crime in Nigeria.
₦1 Trillion Economy or Empty Promise? The Test is Execution.
For all the ambition on display, the most repeated word in the room on Monday was not “innovation” or “inclusion”. It was “execution”.
CBN Governor Cardoso was direct: “The success of PSV 2028 will not be measured by the quality of this document. It will be measured by execution. The worst outcome would be to launch a well-crafted strategy, have a productive conversation today, and return in a year or two to discuss the same unresolved issues.”
NIBSS MD Premiere Olanrewaju, who has spent nearly 20 years in the payment system trenches, proposed a concrete accountability mechanism: a quarterly public dashboard tracking PSV 2028’s progress across all eight quarters between now and December 2028. “This is June 1st – a landmark date,” he said. “By December 2028, we must be able to say, ‘These are the things we delivered.'”
His proposed metrics were specific: track the number of Nigerians with a National Identification Number (NIN) who are actively transacting digitally; measure the number of devices capable of supporting digital payments in active use; and monitor the NPS — Net Promoter Score — of the financial ecosystem, a measure of how Nigerians genuinely feel about the system they are being asked to trust.
Dr Muhammad Sani Abdullahi, the CBN’s Deputy Governor for Economic Policy, put the stakes plainly in his keynote address: “If we implement this Vision with purpose and commitment, Nigeria will not only build one of Africa’s most advanced payment ecosystems but also strengthen its position as a hub for trade, innovation, and economic growth.”
The vision is set. The accountability is being demanded. For 200 million Nigerians, the question is simple: will this one be different?
Sunday Michael Ogwu is a Nigerian journalist and editor of Pinnacle Daily. He is known for his work in business and economic reporting. He has held editorial roles in prominent Nigerian media outlets, where he has focused on economic policy, financial markets, and developmental issues affecting Nigeria and Africa more broadly.