The Central Bank of Nigeria has maintained January 1, 2027 as the deadline for banks, fintechs and other payment operators to store and manage payment transaction data generated in Nigeria locally, ruling out any extension.
The position was reaffirmed at the CloudReady Nigeria Financial Services Roundtable in Lagos, organised by Africa Hyperscalers in partnership with 100 Women in Digital Infra, Open Access Data Centres, Layer3, Nobus Cloud Services and the National Information Technology Development Agency.
Director of the CBN’s Payments System Supervision Department, Dr Rakiya Yusuf, who was represented by Assistant Director Babatunde Ajiboye, said the compliance date remains unchanged.
“The compliance date hasn’t changed. It is 1 January 2027,” Yusuf said.
The requirement is contained in a circular issued on June 15, 2026, directing payment service providers and other licensed participants including deposit money banks, microfinance banks, mobile money operators, switching and processing companies, payment terminal service providers and super agents to store Nigerian payment data in Nigeria.
Yusuf said compliance goes beyond the physical location of databases. She said institutions must address the full data lifecycle from creation through processing and storage to eventual disposal, covering transaction logs, audit trails, metadata and supporting systems.
She outlined the practical sequence as auditing and classifying data, agreeing on local architecture and contracts, then migrating, testing and independently verifying completion.
The apex bank’s stance comes amid concerns from operators that the timeline is tight for institutions with large volumes hosted on foreign cloud platforms, but the CBN has advised those yet to start to commence migration immediately to meet the deadline.
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