What to Watch in A2F 2026: Key Questions About Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion Landscape

For nearly two decades, the Access to Financial Services in Nigeria (A2F) survey has offered something rare in public policy: a long-running record of how economic change is actually experienced by households. Since its launch in 2008 by Enhancing Financial Inclusion & Advancement (EFInA), the survey has tracked not just who has access to formal financial services, but how Nigerians save, borrow, make payments, manage shocks, and adapt when the economy changes around them.

That history makes the 2026 survey, which will be released in Q3 of 2026, especially significant. It will not simply update Nigeria’s financial inclusion figures. It will provide one of the clearest opportunities to assess whether the economic reforms introduced since 2023 are beginning to improve the financial lives of Nigerians, or whether they have changed the channels of inclusion while leaving underlying vulnerability largely intact.

This is why A2F 2026 matters beyond the financial sector. It sits at the intersection of policy, markets, politics, and household welfare. Coming so close to the 2027 election cycle, the data will inevitably attract public attention. But it must not be reduced to campaign material, whether for praise or criticism. Its value is larger than that. A2F 2026 should help the country ask a harder and more useful question: are Nigerians becoming more financially resilient

Reading A2F as a national economic archive

The strength of the A2F survey lies in its continuity. Since 2008, each round has captured Nigeria at a different economic moment: post-banking consolidation, periods of oil-driven growth, recession, pandemic disruption, cash scarcity, and now a period of major structural reform.

The topline story is well known. Financial inclusion has expanded steadily over the years. By 2023, overall financial inclusion had risen to 74%, formal financial inclusion to 64%, and financial exclusion to 26%. The banking population had reached 52%, while the use of non-bank formal financial services had grown from 5% in 2020 to 10% in 2023. These are important gains. They show that the access frontier has moved. More Nigerians are interacting with banks, fintechs, agents, wallets, cards, and other formal providers than in previous survey rounds. But the deeper story has always been more sobering.

Access has improved faster than financial well-being. More Nigerians may hold accounts, use agents, or transact digitally, but many remain unable to save regularly, raise emergency funds, or withstand income shocks without turning to informal coping systems. EFInA’s financial health analysis of the 2023 A2F data made this clear. Only 16% of Nigerian adults were financially healthy in 2023, down from 28% in 2020. In the same year, 85% of adults ran out of money at least once, 58% sometimes went without food, and 80% could not raise ₦75,000 within a week in an emergency. That is the contradiction A2F 2026 must help us examine: Nigeria can become more financially included and remain financially fragile.

The reforms were macroeconomic. Their consequences are personal.

The period between 2023 and 2026 has been anything but normal. Since 2023, Nigeria has implemented some of the most aggressive economic reforms in recent memory. Petrol subsidy was removed; the exchange rate regime was liberalised; inflation surged before easing under a rebased CPI methodology; monetary policy tightened sharply; new tax reform laws were passed; the banking sector entered a recapitalisation cycle; and the payments ecosystem continued to deepen. Each of these reforms has a national logic. But A2F does not measure fiscal logic alone. It measures lived financial reality.

Take petrol. In May 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics reported the average retail price of petrol at ₦238.11 per litre. By March 2026, the reported average price had risen to ₦1,288.54 per litre. That is not an abstract macroeconomic adjustment for households: It is transport cost, food cost, the cost of moving goods from farm to market, the cost of commuting to work, and the cost pressure that sits inside the daily cash flow of a trader, driver, farmer, delivery worker, or domestic worker.

The same applies to exchange rate reform. Around the start of the FX reset in June 2023, the naira moved from roughly ₦471. By mid-May 2026, the official Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM) rate was around ₦1,371 to the dollar. This improved transparency and reduced arbitrage over time, but at household and enterprise level, currency adjustment also means higher imported input costs, higher replacement costs, and more pressure on businesses whose margins are already thin.

Inflation tells the same story. Headline inflation was 22.41% in May 2023. It climbed to 34.80% by December 2024 before the CPI rebasing reset the measurement framework. By March 2026, headline inflation was reported at 15.38%. That easing is a positive sign, but Nigerians do not live inside base-year adjustments: they live inside prices. A2F 2026 will help show whether lower inflation readings are translating into better household liquidity, stronger savings behaviour, and improved emergency readiness. This is why the comparison trap matters. A simple 2023 versus 2026 comparison will be misleading if it ignores the volatility of the intervening period. Progress must be assessed in context.

If inclusion rises but savings fall, that is not simple success. If more adults use digital channels, but more households rely on family support to survive, that is not enough. If more people hold accounts but fewer can raise emergency funds, then the inclusion agenda still has work to do.

The tax reform question is now part of financial inclusion

Another area to watch is tax reform. In June 2025, Nigeria signed four major tax reform laws: the Nigeria Tax Act, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, the Nigeria Revenue Service Act, and the Joint Revenue Board Act. The reforms aim to simplify the tax system, improve revenue generation, and make administration more coherent across levels of government. There is a positive story here. The reforms increase the exemption threshold for small companies from ₦25 million to ₦50 million in annual turnover, with an asset threshold of ₦250 million. If implemented clearly, this could reduce pressure on smaller enterprises and create a better pathway into formalisation.

But A2F 2026 should still help us ask how taxation is being experienced by households and microenterprises. Many Nigerians who appear in A2F as financially included are not salaried formal-sector workers. They are petty traders, transport operators, artisans, small-scale farmers, and self-employed service providers. Their bank accounts, wallets, and agent transactions are tied directly to small businesses. When taxation becomes more structured in an environment already characterised by fuel costs, food inflation, high credit costs, and weak consumer demand, the financial consequences can be significant. Businesses may remain formally active but reduce turnover. They may keep digital accounts but stop saving. They may transact more frequently but retain less value. This is why A2F 2026 should not be interpreted only as a financial services survey. It is also a household-level audit of whether economic reforms are creating resilience, or compressing already fragile incomes.

Fintech has transformed access. Has it transformed outcomes?

If public policy has reshaped the economic environment, fintech has reshaped the access landscape. Between 2008 and today, perhaps no development has altered financial inclusion more than the rise of digital providers and agent networks. Platforms such as Moniepoint, OPay, PalmPay and others have expanded financial touchpoints into communities that traditional banks struggled to serve. In many places, the first formal financial interaction is now with an agent kiosk, not a bank branch. The first savings product may be wallet-based. The first loan may come through an app. The first merchant payment may be QR-enabled or transfer-based. This is not a marginal change. It has redefined the architecture of inclusion.

A2F 2023 already showed the direction of travel: mobile phone adoption reached 87.9%, even though smartphone access remained much lower at 26.6%. That tells us two things at once: the opportunity for digital financial services is massive, but the design challenge remains serious. USSD, agent-assisted channels, low-data interfaces, voice support, trust, fraud prevention, and consumer protection still matter.

The question for 2026 is whether digital expansion has improved financial depth or merely widened formal visibility. A market woman using a digital wallet may appear more included than she did in 2016. But if she now saves less because transport costs have increased and customer demand has weakened, fintech may be improving convenience without improving security. The same applies to small enterprises. Digital payments may increase efficiency, but if macroeconomic conditions reduce margins, then fintech becomes a tool for managing pressure, not necessarily a pathway to growth. This is not an argument against fintech: it is an argument for a more serious reading of fintech’s impact. The positive outlook is that Nigeria now has a broader payments infrastructure, stronger agent networks, an active fintech sector, and a policy environment that continues to emphasise electronic payments, open banking, interoperability, consumer protection, and financial inclusion. These are real foundations for progress. But A2F 2026 must help us separate digital activity from financial progress.

The most important question: who is still being left behind?

When the 2026 data is released, the first headline will likely focus on the national inclusion rate. But the most important story will sit beneath that headline. Has the gender gap narrowed or widened since 2023? In 2023, women’s financial inclusion stood at 70% compared with 79% for men, leaving a 9 percentage-point gender gap. If the 2026 data shows that women’s inclusion improved at the same pace as men’s, that would suggest that policy, fintech, agent networks, and product innovation are reaching women more effectively. But if the gap widens, the message will be uncomfortable: the system may be growing while reproducing old inequalities.

Has rural usage caught up with rural proximity? In 2023, 36.6% of rural adults were financially excluded, compared with 17 percent of urban adults. Agent networks may have reduced distance, but proximity is not the same as meaningful use. A rural adult may live closer to an agent and still not save formally. A farmer may receive money digitally and still borrow informally for inputs. A woman may cash out through an agent and still keep her real savings in a cooperative.

Are financial resilience outcomes improving alongside access? This may be the most important test. The old inclusion debate asked: does the person have a formal account? The next debate must ask: can the person cope with shocks, meet basic needs, raise emergency funds, save consistently, borrow safely, and plan beyond survival?

Which population segments have been left furthest behind? In 2023, exclusion was most severe in the Northeast and Northwest, each at 47%. A2F 2026 should show whether those regional gaps have narrowed, whether youth are deepening usage or simply opening more wallets, whether lower-income adults are moving from access to actual product use, and whether informal workers are becoming more resilient or more dependent on informal coping systems.

Averages can hide too much. A national improvement can coexist with declining outcomes among the poorest adults. A rise in digital payments can coexist with weaker savings. An increase in formal accounts can coexist with rising dependence on family and friends. A stronger fintech footprint can coexist with lower trust in financial services. That is why A2F 2026 must be read distributionally from the first day it is published.

The conversations A2F 2026 should trigger

The next A2F survey will land at a sensitive time. Nigeria will be approaching another election cycle. Public debate will be sharper. Economic performance will be contested. Different actors will want the data to confirm the story they already believe. That is exactly why the financial inclusion community must protect the integrity of the conversation.

A2F is not propaganda for the government. It is not ammunition for opposition. It is evidence. And evidence is most useful when it is allowed to tell the truth. If reforms are improving household financial lives, the data should show it. If macroeconomic stabilisation is happening but households remain fragile, the data should show that too. If fintech is deepening real usage, let the numbers confirm it. If fintech is expanding access without improving resilience, let the numbers force a harder conversation.

There are reasons for cautious optimism. The foreign exchange market is more transparent than it was under multiple windows. The CBN has pursued bank recapitalisation, with new minimum capital requirements of ₦500 billion for international commercial banks, ₦200 billion for national banks, and ₦50 billion for regional banks. Consumer protection, complaint resolution, agent banking, open banking, and payments interoperability are now more central to the policy conversation. The tax reform package could reduce the burden on small businesses if the exemptions are clearly implemented. These changes could strengthen the financial system over time.

But stronger systems must eventually show up in stronger lives.

That is the standard A2F 2026 should hold up to the country.

The financial inclusion community should come to the data with better questions.

Not only: how many Nigerians are included?

But: included in what?

At what cost?

With what level of trust?

Through which channels?

With what resilience outcome?

From 2008 to 2023, A2F documented a clear national story: inclusion expanded, innovation accelerated, but vulnerability persisted. The next survey will show whether the reforms of the past three years have begun to change that trajectory, or whether they have simply made an old challenge visible in new ways.

The most important number in A2F 2026 may not be the national inclusion rate. It may be the gap between access and resilience. That is where the real story will be.

Chioma Nwaiwu, Research Officer, EFInA