The National Payment Stack, NPS, Nigeria’s new sovereign digital payments infrastructure, has processed 26.55 million transactions valued at ₦1.4 trillion across 48 participating financial institutions, signalling rapid adoption of the platform as the country prepares to transition from the legacy NIBSS Instant Payment, NIP system.
The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) Plc, which is rolling out the NPS, said FirstBank of Nigeria currently leads participating institutions in total transaction volume, while Fidelity Bank ranks first in overall transaction value.
Other major early adopters driving transaction growth on the platform include Guaranty Trust Bank, Sterling Bank, Access Bank and Moniepoint.
The NPS is designed as a sovereign, ISO 20022-compliant digital infrastructure that unifies payments, identity and data on a single intelligent rail, with multi-currency capabilities and support for cross-border transactions.
According to NIBSS, the platform is designed to move Nigeria’s payments ecosystem beyond basic transaction processing by introducing structured transaction data, stronger security and enhanced payment intelligence.
The ISO 20022 architecture enables metadata-rich transactions aimed at improving corporate reconciliation, merchant collections and request-to-pay invoicing, while the unified payment rails support single transfers and high-volume corporate disbursements.
The platform also incorporates automated sanctions screening, account validation, end-to-end encryption and real-time risk scoring to identify potential fraud before transactions are executed.
For financial institutions, the NPS provides real-time visibility into net positions and continuous settlement accounting, which NIBSS said would improve liquidity management.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NIBSS, Premier Oiwoh, described the NPS as an economic catalyst capable of transforming Nigeria’s financial infrastructure from basic transaction processing to comprehensive payment intelligence.
“The National Payment Stack represents an economic catalyst moving our financial infrastructure from basic transaction processing to comprehensive payment intelligence,” Oiwoh said.
He urged participating financial institutions to accelerate their integration of the platform’s full range of messages and funds transfer credit and debit processing rails to ensure seamless transactions for end users.
According to him, NIBSS is providing technical support, integration guidelines and assistance to enable institutions meet KYC validation requirements and optimise API usage.
He said full integration would also help prevent platform congestion, enforce proper usage standards and safeguard system performance as the industry moves towards complete migration to the NPS.
The platform is expected to eventually replace the 15-year-old legacy NIP rail, with NIBSS working towards a full industry cut-over.
The Director of the Payments System Supervision Department at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr. (Mrs.) Rakiya Opemi Yusuf, also urged financial institutions to accelerate their NPS integration during a recent working visit to the NIBSS headquarters.
Her position reinforces the CBN’s regulatory support for adoption of the ISO 20022 standard as Nigeria modernises its national payments infrastructure.