Nigeria has emerged as one of Africa’s leading fintech ecosystems, underpinned by regulatory reforms, digital payments infrastructure, and a growing innovation community. Building on this foundation, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has positioned the country not only as a frontrunner in fintech adoption but also as a key contributor to shaping regulatory approaches, innovation practices and trust frameworks. With the right reforms and a unified vision, CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso said Nigeria can evolve from a fintech frontrunner to a fintech rule-setter, reports Assistant Editor COLLINS NWEZE
The rapid expansion of Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem presents a strategic opportunity to drive inclusive economic growth, deepen financial resilience, and strengthen the country’s position within the evolving global digital economy. Fintech offers a powerful mechanism for extending access to underserved and excluded populations. With mobile phone penetration far outpacing access to traditional financial services, there is a compelling opportunity to bridge the gap between digital reach and financial access.
The CBN Fintech Report themed: “Shaping the Future of Fintech in Nigeria: Innovation, Inclusion and Integrity” released recently, highlighted several persistent barriers, including limited identity verification systems, affordability, and infrastructure gaps, that constrain broader inclusion. Addressing these barriers is central to unlocking inclusive financial sector growth.
This report, developed through extensive stakeholder consultation and supported by a nationwide ecosystem survey, assesses the current state of Nigeria’s fintech environment, identifies strategic priorities, and outlines policy pathways to guide the next phase of development. The research points to a compelling opportunity: Nigeria can lead not just in adoption but in the design of the global fintech future, provided it enhances collaboration between regulators and innovators, strengthens infrastructure and policy reforms, and communicates progress with clarity.
It explained that strengthening Nigeria’s role in shaping continental standards and promoting mutual recognition frameworks could help consolidate regional leadership in Africa’s digital economy. Beyond regional integration, Nigeria is also increasingly positioned to contribute to the shaping of global digital finance corridors. These objectives, it said, underscore not only ecosystem priorities but also Nigeria’s opportunity to enhance its international standing by demonstrating regulatory leadership, particularly in areas like Anti-Money Laundering (AML) enforcement, consumer protection, and real-time payments infrastructure.
CBN Governor Cardoso speaks
Cardoso said he witnessed first-hand the transformative power of digital finance to broaden economic participation, create meaningful employment, and improve the lives of millions of Nigerians. It is for this reason that the CBN is intent on seizing our nation’s unique opportunity to harness fintech innovation for national development. “Nigeria is undergoing a rapid and significant financial evolution. Over the past decade, our nation’s fintech landscape has grown from a handful of startups into one of Africa’s most vibrant innovation ecosystems. Even amid global economic headwinds, Nigerian fintech firms continued to attract investment and drive change,” he said.
He explained that with improved stability of Nigeria’s currency and domestic economy, it is clearer than ever that financial innovation can advance inclusion at scale. “This report reflects the Central Bank’s commitment to fostering a thriving fintech landscape while safeguarding the stability of our financial system. It is the product of extensive engagement between regulators and industry stakeholders. By surveying fintech operators, financial institutions and policymakers, we have gathered candid insights on what is working, what is not, and where we can do better.
“The findings illuminate both our progress and the gaps we must address, from modernising regulatory frameworks and payments infrastructure to supporting start-ups in reaching Nigeria’s unbanked communities. The report is careful to contextualise Nigeria’s fintech journey within global trends, reminding us that we are part of a rapidly evolving digital finance landscape that offers immense opportunities as well as new risks,” he stated.
Continuing, he said that for the CBN, innovation is a strategic imperative. “We are committed to creating an environment where new ideas can flourish under prudent oversight, and where inclusion is at the heart of our endeavours. Fintech must help deliver financial services to the last mile of our population, from the bustling cities to the rural villages, so that no Nigerian is left behind in the digital economy.
“As we embrace new technology, it is our responsibility to uphold the integrity of the financial system, maintaining strong governance, consumer protection, and risk management so that trust in our institutions remains firm. I am confident that the insights and recommendations in this report will guide us towards a stronger, more inclusive financial future,” he said.
Speaking further, he said, “The Central Bank will further study the perspectives gathered, and we will continue to collaborate with the industry to refine our policies. This collaborative spirit, government and innovators working together, is the cornerstone of sustainable fintech development. Our goal is to strike the right balance: encouraging the creativity that sparks growth while ensuring robust measures that guarantee stability and public confidence.
“Together, we can make Nigeria a model for fintech in Africa and the world, a country where digital finance supports broad-based prosperity and where regulatory foresight keeps our financial system secure. On behalf of the CBN, I thank all the contributors to this report for sharing their experiences and expertise. We look forward to the journey ahead, as we shape the future of fintech in Nigeria with optimism, purpose, and unwavering integrity.”
Nigeria’s fintech progress
According to the report, financial technology, or fintech, refers to the use of innovative digital technologies to deliver financial services. It encompasses a broad range of market segments, from digital payments and remittances to lending platforms, crowdfunding, insurance technology (InsurTech), investment and wealth management technology (WealthTech), and regulatory technology (RegTech). It explained that as digital platforms transform how people send money, access credit, and interact with financial institutions, Nigeria finds itself both a leader and a testing ground.
It hosts some of Africa’s most influential fintech firms and continues to attract significant investment. In 2024, Nigerian start-ups raised over US$520 million in equity funding out of a continental total of US$2.2 billion, ranking among the continent’s leading ecosystems by both capital raised and deal activity. And this trend is not new: five years earlier, in 2019, Nigerian tech start-ups raised approximately US$747 million, about 37 per cent of all African start-up funding that year.
This performance, amid significant global macroeconomic gyrations, underscores Nigeria’s position as a key hub for financial innovation. However, Nigeria’s fintech funding has largely depended on foreign capital, making the ecosystem vulnerable to global market fluctuations.
The sharp rise in interest rates in advanced economies during 2022 contributed to a slowdown in venture capital funding, which helps explain the decline in Nigeria’s fintech investment inflows by 2024. These dynamics highlight the importance of developing domestic funding avenues, such as leveraging Nigeria’s capital markets, to reduce currency risk and sustain fintech growth.
Given the scale of Nigeria’s payments volumes, the maturity of its real-time infrastructure and its experience managing innovation at population scale, the country is increasingly positioned not only as a fast-growing fintech market, but as a reference whose regulatory lessons are relevant to peer emerging and high-growth economies globally. Insights emerging from the CBN’s engagements with the ecosystem reinforce several priorities for the next phase of ecosystem development, including rising interest in sovereign digital asset frameworks, discussed at an illustrative and exploratory level only, as part of broader conversations on reducing FX leakage and strengthening formal remittance channels.
These perspectives are drawn from industry leaders, operators and regulators across the three inputs that inform this report: the quantitative fintech survey, the June 2025 closed-door stakeholder workshop, and the October 2025 CBN Fintech Roundtable. Together, these inputs provide a grounded understanding of how Nigeria can shift from fintech frontrunner to fintech rule-setter.
Leadership through innovation
Nigeria has long been a pioneer in digital financial innovation. In 2011, the country implemented a nationwide, real-time interoperable payments infrastructure, making instant interbank transfers a standard feature of financial life well ahead of many advanced and emerging economies. This capability has been sustained and deepened through close collaboration between the CBN and NIBSS, and across the payments ecosystem, positioning Nigeria’s instant payments system as one of the most mature, resilient, and widely adopted real-time payment platforms globally.
Nigeria’s early adoption and operational experience, an achievement meriting wider international recognition, provide a strong foundation for the next phase of resilience, access, and governance improvements. Today, more than 25 per cent of all electronic transactions in Nigeria are processed via real-time payment channels and through the NIBSS NIP platform. Close to 11 billion transactions were processed in 2024, up from five billion transactions in 2022, placing the country among the top adopters globally and a clear leader on the African continent. This aligns with the Payments System Vision 2025, which sets a target for achieving near-universal e-payment penetration by 2030.
Innovation and integrity must advance together
Despite its achievements, Nigeria faces an enduring reputational burden linked to digital fraud. Fraud remains a real and evolving challenge, driven by a combination of domestic criminal activity and cross-border actors exploiting global digital platforms. While some fraudulent schemes are perpetrated locally, law-enforcement cooperation and recent prosecutions also show that a significant share of digital financial crimes attributed to Nigeria are orchestrated by foreign or cross-border actors, often using Nigeria as a base or proxy rather than as the true origin. Meanwhile, Nigeria is making credible and measurable progress on financial integrity.
The Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) says N25.85 billion was lost to fraud last year, a significant decrease from N52.26 billion recorded in 2024. Managing Director/CEO, NIBSS Plc, Premier Oiwoh, who broke the news at the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF) technical kick-off session held in Lagos, said fraud counts also dropped from 123,918 cases in 2021 to 67,515 cases in 2025. He disclosed that Lagos remains a major fraud hub due to its cosmopolitan nature, high transaction volumes, and dense financial infrastructure while Abuja and a few other cities are increasingly being used as operational bases because of the comparatively weaker tracking effectiveness along some corridors.
Oiwoh advised banks to watch lifestyle of bankers, which could serve as red flag on fraud detection. He said: “Banks no longer watch the lifestyle of their staff. What we have today is constant celebration of success in the sector.”
In his keynote address, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability, Mr. Philip Ikeazor, said a major enabler of fraud reduction has been Nigeria’s progress in identity management. Speaking on theme: “Shrinking Fraud Losses ISO 20022 & Identity Management” NIBSS CEO further, he said: “The introduction of the Bank Verification Number (BVN), and its ongoing integration with the National Identification Number (NIN), has significantly constrained impersonation and synthetic identity fraud. Enhanced identity verification across banking, agent networks, and high-risk digital channels is steadily closing gaps previously exploited by criminals.
“This reinforces the critical role of identity infrastructure as a foundational control for payment system integrity, with NIMC remaining a key partner in strengthening fraud prevention going forward,” he added.