Nigeria Launches National Payment Stack: Africa's Largest Instant Payment System Gets ISO 20022 Multi-Rail Successor

NIBSS launched the National Payment Stack (NPS) with its first live transaction on November 7, 2025, between PalmPay and Wema Bank. The transaction completed in milliseconds with instant settlement, marking the beginning of a major architectural change to Nigeria's instant payment infrastructure since the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) platform launched in 2011.

A New Architecture

The NPS is built on ISO 20022 messaging standards and introduces a multi-rail architecture connecting banks, mobile money operators, and payment service providers through a single platform. This represents a departure from NIP's original design, which was built to serve a banking sector that has since expanded to include a diverse ecosystem of fintechs, mobile money operators, and PSPs.

Nigeria's payment market has grown considerably since NIP's launch. The system processed 11 billion transactions in 2024 alone, driven by growth in fintech and digital banking that has made Nigeria one of Africa's most active digital payment markets. The NPS is designed to handle this scale while providing the structured data capabilities that ISO 20022 enables - richer payment information, improved fraud detection, and better reconciliation.

Fee Restructuring

In January 2026, NIP transaction fees were reduced to NGN 2 per transaction, with plans to transition to a subscription-based pricing model. The fee reduction signals NIBSS's intent to maintain high transaction volumes during the NPS migration period, while the subscription model would provide more predictable revenue for infrastructure investment.

The fee change also reflects competitive pressure from alternative payment channels in Nigeria, where bank transfers, USSD payments, and fintech-operated wallets all compete for retail transaction volumes.

Migration Path

The NPS launch does not immediately retire NIP. NIBSS is expected to run both systems in parallel during a migration period, allowing participants to transition their integrations to the new platform. The pace of migration will depend on participant readiness, with larger banks likely to move first.

For Nigeria's payment ecosystem - which includes over 20 licensed mobile money operators and dozens of PSPs alongside traditional banks - the NPS represents both an upgrade in capability and a shift in the competitive market, as all participants will need to build new integrations to the platform.