With 11 billion payments processed and a clear-eyed view of who still sits outside the system, the CBN is laying the groundwork for inclusion at scale and opening up one of Africa’s most significant untapped markets in the process.
Nigeria’s payments infrastructure is among the most advanced in the world. But the digital rails powering that system tell only part of the story.
According to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Fintech Policy Insight Report, released in February 2026, nearly 11 billion transactions were processed through the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) platform in 2024, more than double the roughly 5 billion transactions recorded in 2022. The scale places Nigeria among the most active real-time payments markets globally and underscores the strength of its financial infrastructure.
Yet even as digital payments expand rapidly, financial access remains uneven. The report notes that 26% of Nigerian adults remain financially excluded, with exclusion rising to 37% in rural areas and nearly 47% in northern Nigeria.
For policymakers, that contrast reveals the next challenge for Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem: building the infrastructure around payments that allows innovation to reach the people who need it most.
