Nigeria's National Payment Stack processes ₦1.4 trillion in transactions

The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has launched the National Payment Stack (NPS), a sovereign, ISO 20022-compliant digital infrastructure intended to modernize Nigeria’s financial ecosystem and replace the legacy NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) system.

In its early operational phase, the platform has processed 26.55 million transactions valued at ₦1.4 trillion across 48 participating institutions. First Bank of Nigeria leads in total transaction volume, while Fidelity Bank leads in overall transaction value. Other significant early adopters include Access Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Sterling Bank, and Moniepoint.

The NPS architecture unifies payments, identity, and data onto a single rail, supporting multi-currency transactions and high-volume corporate disbursements. Key technical features include structured metadata for automated reconciliation, real-time liquidity management, and embedded security measures such as automated sanction screening and in-flight fraud risk scoring.