‘Interoperability is no longer a technical talking point – it Is a developmental imperative’

As Nigeria’s Payments System Vision 2028 reshapes the regulatory agenda, Dennis Ajalie, MD/CEO of TeamApt, a CBN-licensed switching and processing company, speaks to BusinessDay’s Stephen Onyekwelu on what interoperability really means for scale, and what it will take to build a payments infrastructure worthy of Africa’s largest economy. Excerpts

The Central Bank of Nigeria recently published its Payments System Vision 2028 – a blueprint for Nigeria’s payments infrastructure over the next three years. As someone at the centre of that ecosystem, what is your honest read of where Nigeria stands today?

My candid assessment is that the Nigerian landscape has reached a major inflection point, a reality that the PSV 2028 articulates with remarkable precision. We have engineered a truly formidable ecosystem: annual electronic transaction throughput has eclipsed a quadrillion naira, while formal financial inclusion surged from 54% to 64% in a remarkably short time. The fact that transaction volumes more than doubled between 2022 and 2023 is a testament to intensive capital investment, systemic coordination, and a fundamental shift in consumer behavior as millions of Nigerians transition from cash to digital-first rails.

Nevertheless, these pivotal moments demand a rigorous honesty regarding the requirements of the next phase. The legacy infrastructure that facilitated our current success is not inherently equipped to propel us toward future objectives. The PSV 2028 serves as a critical audit: it acknowledges our collective achievements, identifies systemic friction points, and provides the blueprint for architecting the next tier of national payment rails. For institutional infrastructure participants, this degree of regulatory transparency is the essential catalyst for deploying capital with absolute confidence.

The CBN has had previous payments system visions – PSV 2020 and PSV 2025. How is 2028 different, and does the industry actually take these frameworks seriously or are they largely aspirational documents?

I believe the industry takes them seriously, and the previous frameworks did deliver real outcomes. Agent banking went from negligible to nearly two million access points nationwide. Bank verification number (BVN) enrollment surpassed 66 million, creating a digital identity backbone that many markets still lack. Instant payments also became the default behaviour for millions of Nigerians.

What makes PSV 2028 different is the specificity and enforceability. Previous visions set broad directional goals. This one sets clear targets: full ISO 20022 migration by 2026, 99.999% uptime, 95% financial inclusion, 100% interoperability across licensed payment system providers, and a National Anti-Fraud Consortium. There are named responsibility owners, implementation roadmaps, and compliance mechanisms that give the CBN real visibility into operations. The expectations are much clearer, and progress can be measured more effectively.

The PSV 2028 sets a target of 100% ISO 20022 migration by 2026 and full interoperability across all licensed payment service providers. Are those targets realistic, and what is the risk if they slip?

The targets are ambitious but grounded. ISO 20022 is not new to Nigeria. The CBN and Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) have been laying the groundwork, and the National Payment Stack already uses it as its messaging foundation. So the migration is more consolidation than a greenfield build. The real challenge is ensuring adoption happens consistently across the ecosystem and that smaller players are not left behind.

At TeamApt, our switching infrastructure is already fully compliant with these standards, as we recognise that enriched transaction data is the catalyst for superior fraud mitigation, streamlined reconciliation, and enhanced end-user experiences. The risk of slippage is fragmentation. If some operators migrate and others do not, you get exactly the kind of inconsistency that breeds transaction failures and settlement disputes.That is why strong regulatory enforcement is not just beneficial; it is a developmental necessity.

Transaction volumes in Nigeria have grown dramatically from 6.28 billion in 2022 to over 11 billion in 2023 but the PSV 2028 flags that growth is outpacing infrastructure investment in reliability and scale. How should the industry respond?

This represents the most critical friction point within the current ecosystem. While the surge in transaction throughput is a testament to widespread adoption, sheer volume devoid of systemic reliability is a fragile foundation. For the Nigerian consumer, a failed terminal transaction is far more than a technical glitch; in underserved areas, it represents a direct disruption to economic survival. The PSV 2028 mandate for 99.999% system uptime necessitates a unified approach to infrastructure capital expenditure.

Furthermore, the long-term health of the industry depends on maintaining a truly open ecosystem. The industry must also remain open and interoperable. When transactions move seamlessly across providers, innovation and investment are distributed more broadly across the ecosystem. Closed systems may offer short-term advantages, but they can create concentration risk and limit long-term resilience.In this context, openness is not merely a regulatory preference; it is a fundamental resilience strategy.

Ultimately, the underlying economics must be sustainable. Robust infrastructure requires a cost-reflective pricing framework that accurately mirrors the operational realities of delivering high-availability services. I am optimistic about the ongoing review of these frameworks, as we must strike a delicate equilibrium: ensuring services remain accessible to the public while providing the necessary incentives for operators to continue investing in the future of Nigeria’s payment rails.

When interoperability is achieved at scale, what does that actually unlock for Nigerian businesses and consumers, particularly at the bottom of the pyramid?

The most significant shift is that access to financial services will no longer be dependent on a specific provider, platform, or channel and instead becomes truly seamless. As barriers between networks are removed and participation across the ecosystem becomes more open, a broader range of licensed providers can compete and collaborate effectively.

For businesses, particularly SMEs, interoperability reduces friction. today, many merchants maintain multiple relationships with payment providers because customers are spread across different platforms. Full interoperability means a single integration can serve a much wider customer base, improving operational efficiency, reducing costs, and expanding market reach.

For consumers, particularly those at the bottom of the pyramid, it means being able to transact seamlessly regardless of the bank, wallet, agent network, or payment channel they use. Financial inclusion is not just about opening accounts; it is about ensuring those accounts work wherever economic activity happens.

At scale, interoperability also supports stronger digital identity systems, greater data portability, and more affordable financial services. When payment ecosystems become more interconnected and participation is broadened, innovation accelerates, market access expands, and the cost of serving underserved communities falls significantly.

Beyond fintechs and banks, there are entire sectors (insurance, pensions, capital markets) that have struggled to reach the retail market at scale. Do you think the payments infrastructure conversation applies to them too?

Absolutely. Payments infrastructure is no longer just a fintech conversation; it is a broader economic development conversation. We are witnessing the evolution of these rails into a comprehensive architecture that will finally enable the broader financial ecosystem to achieve significant retail scale.

The historical struggle of sectors such as insurance, pensions, and capital markets to penetrate the retail segment is rarely a reflection of product viability; rather, it is a consequence of inadequate distribution and collection mechanisms. While fintechs achieved rapid adoption by embedding convenience into digital-first experiences, the broader financial industry lacked the necessary connectivity.

Take micropensions. The concept is powerful, but how do you reliably collect two hundred naira every week from a market trader in Onitsha without requiring them to visit a branch? That is a payment infrastructure problem. The same applies to bite-size investments. There is no structural reason a Nigerian with five thousand naira cannot invest in a money market fund from a point of sales (POS) terminal or mobile prompt.

As interoperability improves and ISO 20022 becomes more widely adopted, payment infrastructure becomes increasingly sector-agnostic. Pension administrators, insurers, and investment providers can leverage the same high-availability rails that currently empower fintech wallets. That creates new opportunities to reach millions of Nigerians who remain underserved today. Realizing this potential, however, demands collaboration between infrastructure providers, legacy institutions, and regulators. This is the catalyst required to drive meaningful retail penetration, far beyond the traditional boundaries of banking.

The vision also emphasises cross-border payments as a major opportunity, particularly through Pan African Payments and Settlement System (PAPSS) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) integration. How significant is that for a company like TeamApt?

Very significant. Cross-border is a frontier we are watching very closely. Nigeria is the gateway to West Africa for trade and commerce, and remittances represent billions of dollars in annual flows. The challenge has always been that cross-border payments have always been slow, expensive, and fragmented.

PSV 2028 is explicit about extending domestic interoperability standards into cross-border rails. If Nigeria achieves that, it reduces friction for businesses trading across the continent and positions the country as a regional settlement backbone. For TeamApt, that is a significant growth vector. Our switching capability is designed to be extensible, and cross-border volume is a natural next chapter.

Where does TeamApt sit in making the PSV 2028 vision real, and what are you committing to over the next two years?

As a CBN-licensed switching and processing entity, TeamApt operates at the critical infrastructure layer of the financial ecosystem. We do not merely utilise the existing rails; we are an integral component of that national architecture, a position that demands significant institutional responsibility. Our systems are fully certified across all major domestic and global card schemes, and our core infrastructure already provides the processing, clearing, and switching foundations that empower numerous financial institutions nationwide.

We have a clear roadmap for the next two years. We are deepening infrastructure collaborations to deliver micropensions and micro-health insurance to underserved Nigerians. This work is already manifesting through our role as the technical backbone for the country’s inaugural retail pension and health schemes specifically tailored for informal sector participants. We are also scaling our direct debit architecture to make recurring payments frictionless across the banking landscape. Central to this is our full commitment to ISO 20022 migration and the 99.999% uptime standard. We are not just responding to PSV 2028, we are actively building toward it.

Ultimately, our mission is to democratise access to financial services. Interoperable payment rails is a catalyst that can unlock financial access across banking, insurance, capital markets, and beyond for millions of underserved Nigerians. For us, PSV 2028 is a mandate to build infrastructure that allows every Nigerian to participate meaningfully in the economy.