CBN Eyes Nigeria as Africa’s Next Fintech Export Powerhouse
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is no longer content watching foreign fintech products dominate Nigerian screens. In a bold new direction tied to its Payments System Vision 2028 (PSV 2028), the apex bank has signalled a clear CBN fintech export ambition, one that aims to turn the country from a fintech adoption market into a producer of homegrown digital payment technology sold to the rest of the world.
CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso, who unveiled the framework in Abuja, said the goal goes far beyond keeping transactions running smoothly at home. The CBN signalled ambitions to turn Nigeria from a fintech adoption market into a production and export economy, one capable of generating internationally competitive fintech companies. That single line captures the shift in thinking driving this CBN fintech export agenda: Nigeria should stop importing financial technology and start shipping it out.
Cardoso didn’t mince words about where he expects that innovation to come from. He said Nigerian innovators should be building global fintech solutions from Lagos, Abuja, and Kano, using domestic data and infrastructure, adding that if the sector does not tell its own story, others will tell it for them. It’s a challenge aimed squarely at founders and developers who’ve spent years building for a domestic audience, now the target is global scale.
The ambition isn’t coming out of nowhere. Cardoso said PSV 2028 was designed to position Nigeria as a global fintech hub, with explicit ambition to produce internationally competitive fintech unicorns, noting that open banking reforms had already unlocked over 100 Application Programming Interfaces, creating room for innovation and new financial products. Those APIs are effectively the building blocks the CBN is betting on to fuel export-ready solutions.
This export drive sits alongside other big PSV 2028 targets, including 95 percent financial inclusion by 2028 and slashing fraud losses to below 0.001 percent of transactions, backed by tighter NIN and BVN integration and AI-driven fraud detection. Cardoso has been blunt that documentation alone won’t cut it, execution will decide whether Nigeria’s CBN fintech export vision becomes reality or just another policy paper.
For now, the message to Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem is unmistakable: build for the world, not just for home.
