CBN Unveils AI Strategy to Secure Digital Payments
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced plans to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into its payment systems to enhance fraud prevention and improve the efficiency of the country's digital payments ecosystem. This initiative is part of the newly launched Nigeria Payments System Vision (PSV) 2028, which aims to build a more secure, inclusive, and globally competitive payments infrastructure.
According to the CBN, the adoption of AI aligns with its guiding principle of 'Innovation with Purpose,' focusing on leveraging emerging technologies to boost convenience, efficiency, and competitiveness across the financial system. While Nigeria's digital payments sector has experienced significant growth, the central bank acknowledged that fraud and cyber threats continue to undermine consumer confidence and slow financial inclusion.
Rising Cyber Threats in Digital Payments
The PSV 2028 document highlights persistent risks, including cyber-attacks, identity theft, phishing schemes, and unauthorised transactions, as major vulnerabilities in the payments ecosystem. These challenges have weakened trust in digital financial services and limited broader access to formal financial systems. To address these issues, the CBN stated that the PSV 2028 framework will prioritise cybersecurity, fraud management, and the deployment of advanced technologies capable of detecting and preventing financial crimes in real time.
Under its innovation and emerging technologies pillar, the bank plans to explore AI, blockchain, and programmable payment systems as part of wider efforts to modernise Nigeria's payments infrastructure. The CBN also outlined plans to establish stronger industry-wide fraud monitoring structures, including a national Security Operations Centre and a central fraud intelligence-sharing platform to improve coordination in detecting and responding to threats across the financial sector.
AI-Driven Transformation of Financial Services
Regulators and financial institutions will collaborate on shared infrastructure for fraud detection, risk intelligence, and compliance monitoring, supported by industry-wide cyber performance assessment frameworks. The CBN noted that AI is already transforming global payment systems through applications such as chatbots, self-service platforms, robotic process automation, and intelligent transaction monitoring tools that improve customer experience and operational efficiency.
Beyond fraud prevention, AI-driven systems are expected to enhance compliance processes, strengthen transaction monitoring, and improve service delivery across Nigeria's digital financial platforms. The bank further stated that Nigeria aims to position itself as a leader in technology-driven financial regulation by 2028, with plans to advance regulatory technology (RegTech), supervisory technology (SupTech), and AI-powered compliance systems. It also aims to export locally developed digital payment frameworks to international markets.
Nigeria's electronic payment transactions have already surpassed N1.2 quadrillion in 2025, highlighting the scale of the digital economy that the CBN seeks to protect.
