Traditional regulations can no longer guarantee Nigeria's financial stability, NITDA DG warns
By Aboki Forex —
Nigeria's financial stability can no longer be guaranteed through traditional regulatory approaches, and the country's ability to maintain the integrity of its financial system now depends on sovereignty over the digital infrastructure that powers it. National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Director-General Kashifu Inuwa made the warning on Thursday in Lagos at the 15th Retreat of the Central Bank of Nigeria's Committee of Departmental Directors.
Regulators must watch the whole ecosystem
Inuwa told regulators they must move beyond monitoring individual financial institutions to overseeing the entire digital ecosystem, including telecoms networks, cloud platforms, fintechs, and data systems that modern banking now depends on. He said Nigeria's rapid expansion of electronic payments, which hit approximately N1.07 quadrillion in 2024, had created a financial system that extended far beyond the direct reach of traditional supervisory models.
“To achieve financial stability, we need digital stability. Without digital stability, today we cannot be talking about financial stability in the financial sector,” he said. “We cannot wait for regulated institutions to submit returns before we analyse and understand what is happening. We need end-to-end visibility of the ecosystem.”
Digital sovereignty and financial stability
On digital sovereignty, Inuwa linked Nigeria's financial system security directly to control over the infrastructure that runs it. “Financial stability now depends on resilient technology and Nigeria's capacity for digital self-determination. If we do not build, control and maintain sovereignty over critical digital infrastructure, how can we guarantee the stability and integrity of our financial system?” he said.
“The future of supervision is not merely to digitise regulation, but to digitally transform how regulators sense, understand and respond to risks across the ecosystem,” he added.
CBN and directors respond
CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso, addressing participants virtually, said the bank is in a strong position following its ongoing reforms and urged staff to see institutionalisation as protection rather than a threat. “The Bank is in a good place. Our staff have nothing to fear. Reform and institutionalisation are not a threat to the career officer; they are the protection of the career officer,” he said.
CBN Committee of Departmental Directors Chairman Jimoh Musa Itoba described the retreat as more than an annual engagement, charging directors to take greater ownership of financial stability and Nigeria's economic growth ambitions. “The directors are the major anchors of the Bank,” he said, urging participants to challenge existing narratives and generate practical solutions that management could implement. “Let us be committed, let us get engaged, and make sure that at the end of this retreat, we are not only questioning what we do today but also providing solutions that management can implement.”
What you should know
Nigeria's financial system has become increasingly dependent on digital infrastructure. In June, the CBN's data localisation policy required banks, payment service providers and fintechs to localise customer and transaction data within Nigeria by January 2027. Earlier this month, NITDA signed regulatory instruments under the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative, and this week it inaugurated a Joint Technical Committee with the Budget Office to develop fiscal, procurement, financing and investment structures for the policy.
NITDA has also called for greater coordination among 15 ministries, departments and agencies to fully implement the incentives under the Nigeria Startup Act. The agency made the call at the NSA Incentives Activation Co-Creation Session in Abuja, saying effective implementation requires government institutions to work together so startups and investors can access benefits under the law, which was signed four years ago.
For Nigerian businesses and consumers, the push for digital sovereignty and data localisation means financial data will increasingly stay within the country. That could shape trust in digital financial services, raise compliance costs for banks and fintechs, and drive demand for local data-centre capacity.