The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has ordered banks and other financial service providers to adopt mandatory dual connectivity for all Point of Sale (PoS) transactions within 30 days, in a move aimed at curbing frequent service disruptions across the payment system.
The directive was issued in a circular dated December 11, 2025, and signed by the Director of Payments System Supervision, Rakiya Yusuf. It replaces and strengthens an earlier guideline released by the apex bank in September 2024.
According to the CBN, the policy seeks to address recurring PoS downtime largely caused by overreliance on a single transaction processing channel. Under the new framework, all acquirers, processors and payment terminal service providers are required to maintain active connections with both the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) and Unified Payment Services Limited (UPSL).
The central bank noted that the dual-connectivity model would reduce dependence on one aggregator and significantly enhance the resilience and stability of Nigeria’s electronic payment ecosystem. To enforce compliance, regulated institutions must conduct regular redundancy and failover tests to ensure uninterrupted transaction processing.
The CBN further directed NIBSS and UPSL to collaborate with banks and payment service providers to validate system readiness, adding that the outcomes of such tests would form part of its routine supervisory assessments. In addition, the circular introduced stricter reporting requirements, mandating both switching companies to immediately inform banks of any service disruption.
NIBSS and UPSL are also required to submit comprehensive incident reports to the Payments System Supervision Department within 24 hours of any downtime, detailing the cause of the outage, its impact, and corrective actions taken.
The directive comes amid broader regulatory efforts to sanitise the PoS space, following a recent order by the Corporate Affairs Commission requiring unregistered PoS operators to formalise their operations or face shutdown, alongside warnings to fintech firms over sharp practices.