The Central Bank of Nigeria has directed all players in the nation’s payment ecosystem to fully migrate to the ISO 20022 messaging standard and enforce geo-tagging of payment terminals by October 31, 2025.

In a circular posted on its website on Tuesday, the bank reminded Deposit Money Banks, Microfinance Banks, Mobile Money Operators, Switches, Processing Companies, Payment Terminal Service Providers, Payment Solution Service Providers, Super Agents, and other licensed operators that ISO 20022 has become the global standard for payment messaging.

The notice, dated August 25, 2025, was signed by the Director of the Payments System Supervision Department.Dr. Rakiya O. Yusuf.

The document states that the directive follows SWIFT’s global migration schedule and seeks to harmonise data quality across Nigeria’s financial system.

“All payment transaction messages exchanged domestically or internationally must be formatted in ISO 20022 in line with CBN and SWIFT specifications,” the circular noted.

The directive also requires institutions to accurately populate key data fields such as payer and payee identifiers, merchant and agent identifiers, and transaction metadata.

The CBN emphasized that compliance is mandatory, warning all affected operators to complete migration and achieve full alignment before the October 31 deadline.

In addition, the circular introduced compulsory geo-tagging of payment terminals to strengthen oversight and mitigate fraud in the electronic payments ecosystem.

The CBN directed that all existing and newly deployed payment terminals must have native geolocation capability supported by dual-frequency GPS receivers. Each terminal is to be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA), with precise latitude and longitude coordinates linked to the merchant’s business location.

The circular further mandated Android OS version 10 as the minimum software standard for terminals to ensure compatibility with the National Central Switch’s geolocation monitoring system.

It added that any terminal not routed through a PTSA will be barred from processing transactions, while geo-location data must be captured at the point of transaction and embedded in the message payload as a mandatory reporting field.

“All existing terminals must be geo-tagged within 60 days of this circular; new terminals going forward must be geo-tagged before certification and activation,” the CBN stated.

The regulator also disclosed that compliance validation checks will begin on October 20, 2025.