Senior regulators from across Nigeria’s financial and telecoms sectors have called for deeper cross-agency collaboration to tackle rising payment fraud and digital exclusion, warning that no single institution can deliver the country’s digital economy ambitions alone.
Speaking at the launch of the Payment System Vision 2028 (PSV 2028) in Abuja, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Aminu Maida, identified cross-border fraud as one of the most complex threats facing the payments ecosystem — and one that demands a fundamentally different response from regulators.
“We are facing issues of fraud which cross sectors and cross borders that no single regulator alone can tackle,” Dr Maida said. “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.”
Dr Maida also turned attention to a structural problem undermining financial services across Nigeria: the cost and availability of data. He revealed that the NCC is restructuring the broadband market to create a wholesale fibre access framework — one that would allow smaller internet service providers in cities such as Maiduguri, Kano, and Akwa Ibom to distribute existing fibre capacity more affordably.
Currently, roughly 80 per cent of the country’s ISPs are concentrated in Lagos and Abuja.
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On mobile connectivity, he noted that 4G access has grown by approximately 10 percentage points over the past two years, with about 54 per cent of Nigerians now on 4G networks — yet coverage stands at over 80 per cent, pointing to a significant device gap. The NCC is phasing out 3G, requiring financial service providers to upgrade their POS and ATM terminals accordingly.
“The future belongs to 4G and 5G,” Dr Maida said. “Start now.”
Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr Emomotimi Agama, echoed the call for regulatory unity, framing Nigeria’s payment system as the bedrock of the capital market. “Without payments, there can be no delivery of securities,” he said. “There is no way we can function effectively without seamless collaboration and a payments system that works efficiently.”
Dr Agama, who recently addressed sessions at Harvard Business School and Law School on Nigeria’s digital finance progress, urged stakeholders to tell Nigeria’s story more boldly on the global stage. “If only a handful of people in this room truly understand what we are building, we will have no apostles to spread the message,” he said.
Both regulators linked their respective mandates directly to President Bola Tinubu’s goal of building a one-trillion-dollar economy — a target that officials say cannot be achieved without reliable, inclusive, and fraud-resistant payment infrastructure underpinning every sector.
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.