The Central Financial institution of Nigeria (CBN) says open banking has not gone stay but, regardless of expectations of an August 2025 rollout. Nevertheless, the regulator insists progress is being made on governance buildings and API standardisation wanted to make the system secure and practical.
“Open banking hasn’t gone stay but,” stated Chai Gang, Deputy Director on the CBN’s Funds Programs Coverage Division. “We’ve put collectively a governance construction and are constructing a standardised API template. It’s going to occur quickly.”
Gang spoke on Thursday throughout a panel session at Moonshot by TechCabal, the place he joined Tunde Ogundipe, CEO of E-doc On-line, an open banking knowledge infrastructure platform for rising markets, to debate the coverage’s state of play.
The CBN issued operational tips for open banking in March 2023, however technical and regulatory groundwork continues to be underway earlier than a full launch. The financial institution didn’t affirm a brand new timeline for launch.
“There are the rules for open banking in Nigeria and the framework for open banking in Nigeria,” stated Gang. “We have to be cautious who has entry to prospects’ private knowledge.”
Open banking permits licensed monetary establishments and third-party suppliers to share customer-permitted knowledge by way of APIs. As soon as stay, it might unlock new digital monetary merchandise and deepen entry to credit score throughout sectors.
“One of many strongest foundations for open banking is buyer consent,” stated Gang. “We’re constructing an automatic course of to make sure prospects know what knowledge is used, for a way lengthy, and may revoke permission anytime.”
A brand new catalyst for deeper monetary inclusion
Ogundipe stated robust collaboration and belief throughout the ecosystem would outline success. This success for open banking wants robust buyer consent. It additionally wants banks working with fintechs, and a digital economic system pushed by collaboration, not market cannibalisation.”
“Open banking promotes monetary inclusion and can function a basis for extra SMEs to have entry to credit score, bringing extra folks into the monetary providers ecosystem,” stated Ogundipe, emphasising how open banking drives monetary inclusion in rural areas.
Nigeria’s roughly 40 million small companies typically lack collateral or formal information, leaving them excluded from lending. Shared knowledge might assist construct different credit score histories that unlock entry to capital.
Open banking—however who controls what?
When Nigeria’s open banking economic system lastly goes stay, Gang stated the regulator would assign accountability within the occasion of a knowledge breach, a problem that has raised concern as extra entities put together to deal with buyer data. In response to him, legal responsibility depends upon the place the breach happens.
Licenced operators will deal with prospects’ private knowledge and be held accountable within the case of breaches, whereas unlicenced entities can solely work with anonymised, non-personal knowledge.
“Legal responsibility lies with whoever loses the information,” stated Gang. “Information at relaxation or in flight have to be protected, and whoever fails to take action bears accountability.”
He defined that each licensed open banking operators and non-regulated entities might be required to take care of strict safeguards as soon as buyer knowledge is of their custody.
A framework for decision-making
Ogundipe described the mixing challenges operators presently face when pulling knowledge from banks. Open banking will change that.
“Integrating with 27 banks means 27 completely different APIs—it’s a nightmare,” stated Ogundipe. “Open banking consolidates that. One API, one normal, one registry. It reduces fraud danger and saves months of labor.”
Determination-making can be vital within the open banking economic system. The system wants a structured however decentralised framework that ensures equity to all fintech entrants and gamers that must combine with the standard banking system.
“In case you go away it to the banks, will probably be very troublesome,” stated Ogundipe. “It must be on an equal footing for all gamers.”
The prevailing framework provides banks a template on find out how to work with licenced and non-licensed gamers that wish to combine into the open banking house, easing decision-making for the banks.
Stablecoins might have a job in open finance
On the panel, Gang confirmed the CBN is learning how digital belongings match into Nigeria’s regulatory framework.
“The CBN is these improvements [virtual assets],” he stated. “We’re not unaware that digital belongings, particularly stablecoins, are getting used within the nation.”
But he warned that almost all stablecoins are dollar-denominated and will have an effect on financial coverage if used extensively for retail transactions.
“We’re working with different businesses, just like the SEC [Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission] to grasp the impression, however these are conversations that must occur.”
Nigeria’s open banking framework stays one of the bold in Africa, however the CBN insists a cautious rollout is the one approach to protect belief. As Gang famous, the structure is being constructed rigorously, step-by-step, earlier than the system goes stay.
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