As Nigeria prepares for the open banking rollout

Nigeria sits months away from switching on the most consequential piece of financial infrastructure the country has built in a generation. After issuing Africa’s first open banking regulatory framework in February 2021 and finalising the operational guidelines in March 2023, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s phased go-live is now scheduled to roll out through mid-2026. The stakes are bigger than APIs and compliance registries. Open banking is the rail on which embedded finance will run, and embedded finance is how the 74 million adult Nigerians who are either unbanked or underserved are finally positioned to access credit, insurance, and savings that fit their lives.

The CBN’s guidelines define the roles for API providers and consumers; they mandate a centralised Open Banking Registry to be run by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) and set tiered, consent-based access anchored on the Bank Verification Number (BVN). The originally anticipated August 2025 commercial launch slipped, but the CBN’s February 2026 policy report now commits to a 2026 phased rollout.

Sceptics ask whether banks will really “open” their APIs. History says yes. When the CBN mandated the BVN in 2014, enrolment moved from zero to 12.4 million in sixteen months and stands above 67 million today. When the CBN ordered all accounts linked to a national ID by early 2024, tens of millions of accounts were restricted within weeks, and compliance followed. The NUBAN standard, introduced in 2011, is now the backbone of every interbank transfer in the country. The CBN has a repeatable playbook. Hard deadlines, account-level enforcement, and NIBSS as a neutral operator. Open banking fits this exactly.

The question for me is “Now what?”

The framework will work if it enables businesses to access customer data from the financial system, powering embedded finance. The clearest way to understand embedded finance in open banking is to separate what open banking is from what gets built on top of it. Open banking is a standardised set of rails, a system for safe and seamless transfer of customer financial data, with consent, between banks and the businesses that want to use it.

Open Banking works best with operating systems (OS); think of how the iOS or Android OS works. They take the capabilities inside the device and package them so that any developer can build an app without needing to understand the hardware. Operating systems like OnePipe will sit on the standardised rails to aid builders in incorporating financial services into their digital products.

A traditional business or fintech could then offer bespoke financial services to their customers without becoming a bank. A motorcycle rider who handles the logistics of picking up and delivery may not be eligible for a quick overdraft from a commercial bank to fix his motorbike. However, a fintech company can embed financial services on platforms like Chowdeck & Jumia, which warehouse the transaction history of logistics riders who use their apps. The rider then becomes eligible for a loan because there is evidence of his income-generating abilities. A bustling city like Kano has thousands of petty traders; most of them will be unable to convince a bank of their creditworthiness. When they need extra capital to grow their inventory for a seasonal boom, their hope would be fintechs that have provided them with virtual accounts to receive payment, who then provide historical data to third-party lenders. None of these people went looking for financial services. The services found them, inside contexts they already trusted.

This is particularly important because only around 9% of Nigerian adults have access to formal credit. Insurance penetration sits near 0.5% of our GDP. Neither figure will move by merely building more bank branches. Financial services have to become an invisible layer inside the apps and services Nigerians already rely on. This is how we build financial inclusion.

Now what?

The arrival of regulated Open Banking changes the game for everyone trying to reach the last-mile customer. The rails are here. The infrastructure is ready. What remains is a choice.

A choice for fintechs and traditional businesses to move beyond incremental features and build products that meet people where they are: in markets, on their phones, in their daily transactions. Open Banking will not be defined by regulation alone; it will be defined by the products we choose to build on top of it. The winners in this new era will not be those who understood the policy first but those who acted on it fastest, those who turned APIs into real-life outcomes: payments that work instantly, credit that arrives exactly when needed, savings that happen automatically, and insurance and financial tools that feel as natural as sending a message.

The infrastructure is ready. The customers are waiting. Now is the time to build what truly reaches them, and the time to start is now.

 

Yvonne-Faith Elaigwu is a generalist with a wealth of experience in people management, strategic planning, negotiation, and sales.