PoS firms now face a clear ultimatum from Nigeria’s central bank as regulators move to stamp out chronic payment failures.
At the centre of the move, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed all acquirers, processors and payment terminal service providers to establish dual connections with the NIBSS and Unified Payment Services Limited (UPSL).
PoS Firms Face New Deadline
Through this step, the regulator aims to eliminate single points of failure that disrupt everyday transactions.
The directive, signed by director of payment system supervision, Rakiya Yusuf, signals a tougher stance by the CBN on payment infrastructure reliability.
Rather than tolerate continued dependence on one routing channel, the bank now wants firms to build redundancy into their systems.
Ending Single-Channel Risk
Under the new rules, PoS terminals must switch automatically between NIBSS and UPSL whenever one network fails.
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As a result, merchants and consumers should see fewer declined transactions and faster checkouts.
Tighter Oversight, Higher Stakes
At the same time, the CBN has strengthened oversight across the payments ecosystem.
NIBSS and UPSL will carry out regular resilience tests with banks and submit their findings to the regulator.
In addition, both aggregators must alert banks immediately during any system disruption and provide a follow-up report explaining what went wrong and how they fixed it.
The directive raises pressure on an industry that handles millions of transactions every day, where even short outages can ripple through the wider economy.
Payments analysts say dual connectivity could significantly improve transaction success rates and restore confidence in PoS channels.
However, smaller service providers warn that integration costs and tight timelines could stretch their resources, even as fintech leaders expect smoother e-commerce and payment flows.
