From FATF Grey List Exit to Payment Intelligence: Tolu Adetuyi on How PVS 2028, ISO 20022 and National Payment Stack Could Reshape Nigeria’s Financial System

For many years, the digital payment sector in Nigeria focused on the number of seconds it took transactions to get completed as a measure of progress.

How quickly can money move from one account to another? How many transfers can a payment switch process in a day? How fast can a customer receive funds?

The focus on speed transformed banking, with instant transfers becoming normal, fintechs flourishing and digital payments expanding rapidly across the country.

However, that speed created its own blind spot. A transaction worth ₦10 million could move through the financial system carrying little information; the amount, an account number and a short narration. That’s all.

Regulators saw it, with banks processing it and fraud systems scanning it, but nobody could fully understand the back-end operations behind it.

That is now changing.

As Nigeria implements the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Payment System Vision (PSV) 2028, adopts ISO 20022 standards and transitions towards the National Payment Stack (NPS), faster payments aren’t the only focus anymore.

We may see the arrival of richer transaction data that gives financial institutions, regulators and businesses a clearer picture of what money is doing, where it is going and why it is moving.

The transition comes at a critical moment.

Nigeria recently secured its exit from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list, a milestone that pointed to the confidence in the country’s financial management. The challenge now is proving that the progress is sustainable.

According to Tolu Adetuyi, chief information officer at Prembly, the reforms are much bigger than a technical upgrade.

“When you look at what CBN is actually envisioning for 2028, it means that we are truly serious about building a modern sovereign financial infrastructure.”

His point is noteworthy, as conversation around the reforms has largely focused on data localisation and where payment information should be stored. But then, that discussion lies a deeper structural change. Nigeria is redesigning the information layer of its financial system.

In simple terms, payments are evolving from instructions into intelligence.

“The past decade has simply been about us just moving money faster,” Adetuyi said. “And I think these new changes are ensuring we move money in the correct way, and in the correct format.”

That distinction can’t be ignored.

Under older payment systems, institutions worked with fragmented information. Fraud teams relied heavily on transaction amounts and limited customer records, while compliance officers pulled information from multiple systems before producing regulatory reports.

Investigators, on the other hand, frequently spent valuable time trying to identify the parties behind suspicious transactions.

ISO 20022 changes that equation by introducing significantly richer payment messages. “That message is beautiful enough to be able to tell a story,” Adetuyi explained.

Instead of seeing only a transaction value, financial institutions can access a bigger context. They can identify the sender, understand the recipient, determine whether the transaction involves an individual, business or institution, and see how the payment has been categorised.

“If making payment for salary, the narration has to be salary. If making payment for goods and services, that should be clearly indicated that this is goods and services.”

The result is a payment ecosystem that understands context rather than just recording movement. That context could completely enhance fraud prevention.

Today, many fraud systems still depend on regulations built around transaction thresholds and basic behavioural patterns. A large transaction may trigger an alert simply because of its size, whole legitimate payments usually get caught in the same net, creating expensive false positives and operational delays.

Adetuyi believes richer transaction data changes the dynamic.

“Even these entities should not be using this kind of amount of money in the first place.”

Rather than focusing solely on the value of a transaction, institutions can analyse whether the transaction makes sense within the broader profile of the customer and recipient.

The impact goes beyond detecting fraud, as it also improves efficiency. “As your fraud team and compliance team spend a whole lot of time just resolving transactions that shouldn’t have been flagged in the first place.”

With better context, fewer legitimate transactions should be wrongly flagged, allowing institutions to focus resources on genuinely suspicious activity.

The compliance implications may be even greater. Many financial institutions, anti-money laundering processes are quite labour-intensive. Teams usually pull information from multiple systems before generating Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) and Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs).

Under the new framework, much of that work becomes more structured. “STR reports should not be something you would have to start pulling data from different platforms. You should just click a button and you generate it.”

This capability arrives at a particularly important time, when Nigeria’s removal from the FATF grey list reduced a major reputational burden.

But Adetuyi says staying off that list will depend on demonstrating effective oversight and high-quality reporting.

One of the strongest points he makes is that global confidence is built on evidence, not promises. “If anything, it’s just that we need to do more and ensure that we get better.”

He argues that richer payment data can strengthen the quality of information submitted to regulators and international bodies.

“When they see the information, they see that it is sophisticated, it is quality, then they inform the perception on the global world.”

In other words, better payment intelligence does not only improve compliance, it can influence how Nigeria is perceived by international financial institutions, correspondent banks and investors.

The Payment System Vision 2028 and other reforms also extend beyond Nigeria’s borders. As the National Payment Stack aligns with ISO 20022 and integrates with initiatives such as the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), Nigeria is positioning itself within a bigger continental payments network.

“I think Nigeria’s payment reforms are not just like a domestic story. I think it’s more of a gateway story.”

If successful, the reforms could make it easier for African countries to exchange payments directly, reduce dependence on intermediary currencies and lower the cost of cross-border transactions.

That vision, however, comes with challenges.

Large banks must modernise decades-old infrastructure, smaller institutions are facing funding limitations, fintechs must navigate compliance obligations and potential increases in local infrastructure costs, while data localisation itself is still an area where industry participants want clearer regulatory guidance.

“The interest is right, the goal is right. But again, there’s need for a lot more refinement.”

That balance between vision and execution may determine whether the reforms succeed. We have the technology and the policy direction is very clear. Nonetheless, the issue is the difficult work of implementation.

Adetuyi believes the destination is worth the effort. He sees a financial system where most transactions are digital, structured and machine-readable; where financial crime becomes harder because data quality improves; where compliance evolves into a mature industry rather than an operational burden; and where Nigerian institutions engage global financial networks with greater confidence.

The challenge now is turning policy into results. Adetuyi says “international bodies will not judge Nigeria by its plans, but are going to look at the outcome.”

That may ultimately be the defining test of Payment System Vision 2028, not whether Nigeria can move money faster.

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