The Central Bank of Nigeria has issued a new directive mandating all acquirers, processors, payment terminal service providers, and payment terminal service aggregators to implement dual connectivity for Point-of-Sale (PoS) transactions.
The policy requires service providers to link PoS terminals simultaneously to the two licensed Payment Terminal Service Aggregators, Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) and Unified Payment Services Limited (UPSL), to eliminate failures caused by reliance on a single routing channel.
The apex bank said the directive builds on an earlier circular released on September 11, 2024, which warned against the risks of having the entire PoS ecosystem depend on one aggregator. Such dependence, it noted, has frequently led to delayed transactions, system downtime, and widespread service interruptions.
In the new circular signed by Rakiya O. Yusuf, Director of the Payments System Supervision Department, the CBN instructed all PoS operators to maintain active, functional connections to both NIBSS and UPSL.
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It further directed that PoS routing systems must be configured with automatic failover capabilities, ensuring transactions are instantly rerouted to the alternative aggregator whenever one platform experiences downtime.
According to the bank, the requirement is designed to strengthen the reliability of Nigeria’s electronic payments infrastructure and reduce the persistent transaction failures faced by merchants and customers.
The circular also mandates NIBSS and UPSL, in collaboration with financial institutions, to carry out regular tests confirming that the redundancy systems are effective.
In the event of any service disruption, both aggregators are required to alert banks immediately and send a detailed incident report to the CBN within 24 hours, outlining the cause of the outage and steps taken to resolve it.
The central bank gave all regulated financial institutions a one-month deadline to achieve full compliance. It described the dual-connectivity framework as essential to preventing large-scale service breakdowns, safeguarding customer trust and ensuring a smoother, more resilient PoS transaction environment nationwide.
