Building Resilience in Nigeria’s Financial System
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is pushing for data localization not just to keep financial information within the country but also to ensure business continuity and system resilience. Speaking at TechCabal’s Insights Power Brunch, CBN Director Rakiya Yusuf emphasized that “localization is not the same thing as resilience.”
The Growing Need for Data Sovereignty
Nigeria processed over ₦1.2 quadrillion ($880.51 billion) in transactions in 2025, a growth that has prompted regulators to examine how financial data is managed and protected. With digital payments rapidly expanding globally, central banks like those in India and Uganda are concerned about concentrating critical infrastructure on foreign cloud providers.
The CBN’s focus extends beyond where data physically resides to include:
- How data is governed and secured across its lifecycle
- Whether institutions can recover data and resume operations after disruptions
- The level of dependence on external technology providers
Executive Ownership Required
Yusuf stressed that this transition requires executive leadership rather than being delegated solely to IT departments. Financial institutions need to understand:
- Where their payment transaction data originates, is processed, and stored
- Who has access to the data at all stages
- What happens when technology provider relationships end
Banks with complex supply chains (a typical Nigerian bank has 200+ tier-one partners) face a significant visibility challenge. The CBN’s cybersecurity framework requires institutions to maintain records of all third-party providers.
The goal is to ensure that failures at one provider don’t create cascading disruptions across the financial system—for example, preventing payments from being processed during an outage.