Open Banking in Nigeria (2026): The Past and Future of Fintechs

Open banking is shifting Nigeria toward a data-permissioned, API-driven financial ecosystem. As regulated data-sharing becomes commercial reality, banks, fintechs, commerce platforms, and mobility networks will be able to build smarter products, execute payments more efficiently, automate payouts, and reward users based on verified activity.

This report examines Nigeria’s open-banking journey, market signals, global comparisons, implementation challenges, and emerging use-cases. It also highlights where businesses can derive meaningful value, including how infrastructure-level enablers like Yournotify support automated payout and incentive models.

Historical Context

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) published Operational Guidelines for Open Banking in 2023. These guidelines defined eligible participants, data scope, API standards, consent management, data security requirements, service-level expectations, and the Open Banking Registry for supervision.

Open Banking Nigeria maintains and expands the national API standard, ensuring compliance and local suitability.

The OECD notes that Sub-Saharan Africa is transitioning beyond banking data toward open finance models, where pension, insurance, and investment data can participate in similar frameworks.

Nigeria’s timeline
2019–2021: Standard definition and early alignment
2021–2022: Draft guidelines and stakeholder feedback
2023: Publication of operational guidelines
2024–2025: Early pilots and limited production adoption
2026: Broader ecosystem commercialisation

Nigeria is now considered one of the African markets furthest along in open-banking regulation, although practical integration is still early.

Market Maturity Indicators

Data from EFInA confirms that formal financial access is improving, especially as mobile agents expand usage across population clusters. Agent usage increased from 4.4% in 2018 to 54% in 2023, strengthening last-mile rails for digital finance.

National identity penetration (NIN, BVN) has improved onboarding paths for fintechs and helps reduce KYC friction.

Mobile and broadband connectivity continue to expand, as indicated by NCC reporting, although uneven coverage remains an adoption constraint.

Data protection enforcement is real. In 2024, the national authority fined a commercial bank for consent violations, signalling that open-banking deployments must adhere to governance expectations.

These developments collectively support trust, reliability, and participation in an open-data financial system.

What Open Banking Enables

Data Aggregation
Permissioned access to customer banking history supports unified views, transaction intelligence, fraud analysis, and behavioural analytics.

Payment Initiation
Third-party applications initiate account-to-account transfers, streamlining merchant payments, collections, and automated settlement.

Credit & Risk
Small businesses, salary earners, and gig-workers can share transaction data to support cash-flow-based lending decisions.

Embedded Finance
Platforms across commerce, mobility, logistics, and payroll can incorporate payments, credit, and payout without directly providing primary banking services.

Consent Management
Nigerian standards emphasise transparent, revocable user consent. Participants must provide clear logs and user control interfaces.

Peer Benchmarking

United Kingdom
Over 15 million open-banking users were recorded by mid-2025. Roughly 30 million open-banking payments occurred in July 2025.
The UK demonstrates that recurring payments and intelligent account sweeps are strong adoption drivers.

South Africa
Policy formation and bank participation are progressing. Nigeria remains ahead regarding approved frameworks, but both markets face interoperability challenges.

Sub-Saharan Africa
The OECD reports that SSA markets are trending toward open finance structures, where other financial data categories become standardised.

Market Outlook

The global open-banking market is valued at roughly USD 25–27B in 2025 and expected to surpass USD 46B by 2030 at ~15% CAGR.

Nigeria’s adoption curve is expected to progress in two phases:

2025–2027
Selective integrations
Payment initiation in key verticals
SME/retail risk scoring

2027–2030
Recurring payment routines at scale
Insurance and pension data sharing
Advanced analytics commercialisation

Commercial traction will depend on uptime, merchant UX, and predictable API performance.

Priority Areas for Builders

Near-term (0–6 months)
Consent ledger + dashboards
Payment initiation pilots
Transaction-based risk scoring

Medium term (6–18 months)
Embedded finance for platforms
SME underwriting products
Automated merchant reconciliation

Longer term (18–36 months)
Recurring payments and savings automations
Open-finance expansion into insurance + pensions

Implementation Architecture

Recommended patterns include:
API-first implementations aligned with CBN/NIBSS standards
Encryption and strong permission management
Unified observability for bank-level uptime
Idempotency for payments + payouts
Clear data governance and minimisation
Reconciliation frameworks for degraded API conditions

Data-protection controls require ongoing audits and privacy-impact assessments.

Risks

API Fragmentation
Mapping variance between institutions; contract testing advised.

Consent Fatigue
Clear scoping and revocation flows are critical.

Security Incidents
Zero-trust and active monitoring mitigate risk.

Connectivity Gaps
USSD and assisted channels help rural participants.

Bank Readiness
Institution capability varies; prioritise proven infrastructure.

User Understanding
Value-based education improves permission rates.

Business Sectors That Benefit Most

Open banking creates meaningful improvements in efficiency, user verification, and financial workflows across industries.

Financial Services & Lending
Digital lenders
BNPL and salary-advance providers
Microfinance institutions

E-commerce & Marketplaces
Multivendor platforms
Social commerce
Classifieds

Logistics & Mobility
Ride-hailing
Delivery platforms
Courier networks

Gaming, Lottery & Betting
Sports betting apps
Fantasy sports
Lottery operators

Insurance
Health + life micro-insurance
Consumer insurance

Telecommunications
Telco rewards
Airtime platforms

Wealth & Personal Finance
Savings apps
PFM tools

Payroll & Workforce
Payroll processors
Gig-platforms

Consumer & Retail Loyalty
FMCG distributors
Retail chains

Table: High-Value Sectors + Key Use-Cases

The Role of Yournotify

As industries adopt open-banking frameworks, the ability to connect validated user activity to instant payout becomes a powerful commercial driver. Many businesses do not want to manage payout plumbing, compliance visibility, identity checks, and reconciliation overhead.

Yournotify serves as an infrastructure-level enabler that allows platforms to:
Trigger payouts on verified financial activity
Build incentive/reward workflows tied to user transactions
Automate merchant/agent/driver settlement
Generate behavioural insights that improve campaigns

This matters across categories like financial lending, e-commerce, logistics, sports betting, insurance, and payroll. By combining permissioned data and automated payout rails, businesses can drive recurring behaviour loops:

Acquire → Convert → Reward → Retain

This structure lowers frictions, increases trust, and scales participation across B2B2C models.

Key Lessons

Nigeria has formal open-banking policy and rising digital penetration. The next phase depends on consistent API participation, predictable performance, and real-world product delivery.

Winning models will prioritise:
Simple payment journeys
Transparent consent flows
Data-driven risk decisions
Reliable settlement infrastructure
Open-finance extensibility

Sources

CBN Operational Guidelines for Open Banking
Open Banking Nigeria API Standard
EFInA Access to Financial Services 2023
OECD Open Finance and Open Banking in SSA (2024)
NCC Connectivity Data
Open Banking UK Volumes (2025)
NDPC Enforcement Case (2024)