CBN directs banks to geo-tag payment terminals within 60 days to avoid transaction failure

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a directive to all commercial banks, microfinance banks, mobile money operators, and other licensed participants in the Nigerian payments ecosystem, mandating full migration to the ISO 20022 standard for payment messaging by October 31.

ISO 20022 is a global standard for financial messaging — that is, the format and structure of electronic data exchanged in payments, securities, trade services, cards, and foreign exchange transactions.

In a circular signed by Rakiya Yusuf, director of the payments system supervision department, on Tuesday, CBN reminded all licensed operators that ISO 20022 is now the standard for payments messaging both domestically and internationally in line with SWIFT’s global migration timeline

The apex bank added that compliance validation exercises will commence from October 20.

“All payment transaction messages exchanged domestically or internationally must be formatted in ISO 20022 in line with CBN and SWIFT specifications,” the statement reads.

“All Institutions shall ensure complete and accurate population of mandatory data elements, including payer/payee merchant/agent identifiers, and transaction metadata. identifiers.”

Under the new directives, all payment terminals are required to have native geolocation services enabled, with double-frequency GPS receivers for a reliable geo-location service.

“All payment terminals must be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA) with accurate latitude/longitude coordinates indicating the Merchant/Agent place of business/service and status,” CBN added.

“All Operators (PTSAS, PTSPS, PTADs, Acquirers) are to ensure their Pos terminals and applications are duly certified by the national central switch to align with the listed standards.

“As part of the Certification process, all payment terminals must have the National Central Switch SDK for Geolocation monitoring and Geofencing implemented within the libraries of its PoS Application.

“Android Operating System (OS) v10 is the minimum OS requirement across all terminals to ensure compatibility and seamless integration with the National Central Switch Geolocation SDK

“The SDK for geolocation monitoring must be initialised at the registered business/service location.

“A radius of 10 meters outside the registered business/service location is the permitted geofence for all merchant activity.”

The apex bank also mandated that all terminals and applications be certified by the National Central Switch, adding that the terminals not directly routed to a PTSA will not be allowed to transact.

According to the circular, all existing terminals must be geo-tagged within 60 days of the notice, while new terminals must be geo-tagged before certification and activation.

The CBN said the measures are aimed at enhancing transaction integrity, curbing fraud, and ensuring standardised data quality across Nigeria’s payments system.