Nigeria Eyes Faster Cross-Border Payments Through Interswitch Partnership Talks
Quick Read:
- Taiwo Oyedele met Interswitch’s Mitchell Elegbe in a strategic sit-down
- Talks centered on cutting costs of cross-border digital payments and remittances
- Local currency settlements and AfCFTA trade goals took center stage
- Move reflects Nigeria’s bid to lead Africa’s fintech space
Nigeria is not slowing down on its ambition to dominate Africa’s digital finance space. In a high-level meeting that has caught the attention of the fintech community, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, sat down with Interswitch Founder and Group Managing Director Mitchell Elegbe to chart a path forward for cross-border digital payments across the continent.
The conversation wasn’t just a courtesy call. It dug into practical strategies for slashing the cost of moving money across borders, tightening up remittance services, and pushing for more local currency settlements between African nations. These are the kinds of frictions that have long made cross-border digital payments expensive and slow for businesses and everyday people trading across the continent.
Regional trade was also front and center, with both parties weighing how stronger digital payment rails could support the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The idea is simple but powerful: if African businesses can move money as easily as they move goods, trade integration becomes far more realistic.
For Nigeria, this meeting is another signal of the Federal Government’s intent to lean on public-private partnerships to drive innovation in its financial sector. Working with an established player like Interswitch gives Oyedele’s team a direct line into one of the continent’s most experienced payments infrastructure providers, rather than building everything from scratch.
It also fits into a bigger picture. Since taking over the finance portfolio in April, Oyedele has kept a steady focus on fiscal reform and economic stability, and this Interswitch engagement adds a fresh fintech dimension to that agenda. Nigeria has made no secret of its desire to be seen as Africa’s fintech capital, and conversations like this one add weight to that positioning. As more African countries push toward economic integration, the country that controls the rails for cross-border digital payments stands to gain outsized influence over how money, and by extension, trade, flows across the region.
Whether these talks translate into concrete policy or new payment corridors remains to be seen, but the intent is clear: Nigeria wants to be at the center of how Africa pays, sends, and settles money across its borders.
