CBN mandates local storage of payment data by Jan 2027 to boost resilience

CBN has directed banks, payment companies, switches and other participants in Nigeria’s payment system to store and manage all payment data generated in the country locally by January 1, 2027. Dr Rakiya Yusuf, Director of the Payment System Supervision Department, said at a TechCabal event on September 10 that the goal is not merely data localisation but ensuring resilience—so institutions can recover services and keep processing payments when infrastructure fails. In 2025 Nigeria processed over ₦1.2 quadrillion ($880.51 billion) in transactions, a volume driving the rule as foreign cloud concentration poses systemic risks.

The rule requires financial institutions to examine who controls their infrastructure, where backups sit, their dependence on technology providers, and their ability to recover or migrate data during disruptions. Yusuf warned that simply moving primary databases locally while keeping backups offshore or relying on foreign control planes does not achieve true resilience or sovereignty. Banks must also understand their full data lifecycle—origins, processing, storage, access—and map dependencies across cloud providers, data centres, connectivity and software vendors, noting a typical Nigerian bank works with over 200 tier‑one third parties.

Institutions should start now with data discovery, flow mapping, workload and vendor assessments, contract reviews, and business‑continuity and cybersecurity checks, treating the shift as a structured transformation programme rather than a last‑minute compliance task. While Nigeria remains open to global technology—citing Microsoft’s work with the EFCC and AWS’s partnership with the Federal Ministry of Education—the CBN stresses that international providers serving critical financial entities must meet Nigerian standards for regulation, resilience, security and sovereignty. Will banks use this deadline to build genuinely resilient payment systems, or will they treat it as a checkbox exercise?

SOURCE: https://techcabal.com/2026/09/29/cbn-data-localisation-nigeria-financial-data/