The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a new directive that could reshape Nigeria’s payment system. By October 31, 2025, all banks, mobile money operators, super agents, and other licensed payment providers must geo-tag every Point-of-Sale (POS) terminal and fully migrate to the ISO 20022 messaging standard.

The move is designed to modernize Nigeria’s financial system and curb the rising cases of fraud linked to POS operators and electronic transactions.

In a circular signed by Dr. Rakiya Yusuf, Director of Payments System Supervision at CBN, the apex bank explained that ISO 20022 will create uniform, high-quality payment data, making transactions more transparent and harder for fraudsters to exploit. The standard is already used globally and aligns Nigeria’s system with international benchmarks.

On the POS side, every terminal—whether old or newly deployed—must now come with native geolocation services using double-frequency GPS. This ensures that the exact location of a merchant or agent is captured and tied to every transaction.

CBN further noted that:

All POS devices must be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA).

Terminals must run at least Android v10 to work with the new system.

Geo-location data must be recorded at the start of every transaction and included in the reporting message.

Merchants will only be allowed to operate within a 10-meter radius of their registered location (geofencing).

To ensure compliance, the National Central Switch will certify all terminals and applications, including geolocation monitoring tools. Any terminal not geo-tagged or properly certified will not be allowed to process transactions.

The CBN has given operators 60 days from the circular date to geo-tag all existing terminals, while new ones must be compliant before activation. Starting October 20, 2025, compliance checks will begin across the country.

With this policy, the CBN is sending a clear message: fraudulent practices in Nigeria’s payment system will no longer be tolerated.