The Central Bank of Nigeria has issued a fresh one-month deadline for banks, acquirers and payment service providers to fully activate dual connectivity on all Point of Sale terminals.
The directive, contained in a circular signed by the Director of Payments System Supervision, Rakiya Yusuf, was released on December 11 and updates an earlier framework issued in September 2024.
The News Chronicle gathered that the new directive is intended to end persistent single-channel failures that have repeatedly disrupted PoS transactions across the country. Senior industry sources said the regulator is prioritising system stability ahead of the 2026 compliance cycle.
Under the policy, all processors and Payment Terminal Service Providers are required to maintain active connections to both the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System and Unified Payment Services Limited. This dual arrangement is expected to prevent overdependence on a single aggregator and strengthen real-time transaction routing.
The CBN has also ordered PoS systems to automatically switch between both networks whenever one experiences a disruption. This failover mechanism, now a mandatory standard, is designed to minimise failed transactions during network outages. The regulator further directed both aggregators to conduct routine redundancy and failover tests with financial institutions to confirm system readiness.
The circular introduces tighter reporting rules, requiring NIBSS and UPSL to notify banks immediately during any downtime and submit a full incident report to the CBN within 24 hours.
With the implementation window closing by mid-January 2026, financial institutions must complete integration and testing within weeks. The directive forms part of the apex bank’s broader push to strengthen the digital payment ecosystem, coming months after its geo-tagging and compliance requirements for PoS operators nationwide.
