The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has mandated that all Point of Sale (PoS) terminals across the country must be geo-tagged within 60 days, with the deadline slated for October 31, 2025.
The apex bank directed all Deposit Money Banks, Microfinance Banks, Mobile Money Operators, Switching and Processing Companies, Payment Terminal Service Providers, Payment Solution Service Providers, and other licensed operators to be confined to operate within a 10-meter radius of their registered business address, a move designed at reducing fraud and also tightening regulatory control.
The development was contained in a circular issued by Rakiya Yusuf, director of the CBN’s Payments System Supervision Department, which stated that all PoS terminals must be migrated to the globally recognized ISO 20022 messaging standard, adding that compliance validation exercises are scheduled to commence nationwide on October 20, 2025.
To further ensure compliance, the CBN further directed all payment terminals to be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA), Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), or Unified Payment Services Limited—with precise latitude/longitude coordinates indicating the merchant’s/agent’s place of business/service and status.
