Nigeria’s digital banking success story is commonly informed by the lens of apps, fintech innovation, and transaction volumes. However beneath the expertise lies a much less glamorous, but much more necessary achievement – the rebuilding of belief.
With out belief, digital banking can not scale, inclusion can not deepen, and innovation can not endure. On the centre of that belief structure is the Premier Oiwoh led Nigeria Inter-{Bank} Settlement System (NIBSS), whose work has quietly however profoundly reshaped how Nigerians understand and use digital banking.
Although commenced operation in June 1994, the NIBSS is owned by all licensed business banks in Nigeria together with the Central {Bank} of Nigeria (CBN). It has put in place fashionable world-class infrastructures for dealing with inter-bank funds in an effort to take away potential bottlenecks related to inter-bank funds switch and settlement.
For years, confidence in Nigeria’s banking system was undermined by weak identification verification, widespread fraud, and inconsistent buyer data throughout banks. Many Nigerians averted digital banking not as a result of they lacked entry, however as a result of they lacked confidence. That actuality posed a systemic threat to {financial} stability and inclusion. Recognising that expertise with out belief couldn’t ship sustainable progress, NIBSS, working with the CBN and deposit cash banks, launched the {Bank} Verification Quantity (BVN) as a single biometric identification for {bank} clients.
BVN modified the equation. By introducing a single biometric identification throughout the banking system, NIBSS helped remove anonymity and inject accountability into digital finance. For the primary time, buyer identification turned portable, verifiable, and constant throughout establishments. This was not merely a technical repair; it was a governance intervention. Belief started to interchange suspicion, and confidence slowly returned to digital banking channels.
The numbers inform a compelling story. As of December 2025, greater than 67.8 million Nigerians are enrolled on the BVN platform, up from 63.5 million a 12 months earlier. This regular progress will not be unintentional, it displays public acceptance of BVN as a protecting mechanism—one which reassures customers that digital banking is anchored on identification, traceability, and safety.
But identification alone doesn’t construct confidence. Belief is strengthened each day by expertise. That is the place NIBSS’ cost infrastructure has confirmed decisive. Techniques such because the NIBSS Immediate Cost (NIP) platform have made real-time interbank transfers routine and dependable. Diminished transaction failures, quicker settlements, and system interoperability have reshaped public behaviour. Whereas bodily banking system continues, Nigerians now transfer cash digitally with a degree of ease and assurance that may have appeared inconceivable a decade in the past.
Importantly, NIBSS has additionally strengthened confidence on the institutional degree. Regulators depend on BVN’s audit path to fight fraud, cash laundering, and different {financial} crimes. Worldwide companions view the system as proof of Nigeria’s seriousness about {financial} integrity. In an period when international capital is delicate to governance threat, this credibility issues as proof is extensively accountable within the current delisting of Nigeria from that Excessive-risk {Financial} Listing of the European Union (EU).
{Financial} inclusion, typically mentioned in summary phrases, has discovered sensible expression by this belief framework. Company banking, digital wallets, and cellular {financial} providers have expanded largely as a result of individuals imagine the methods behind them will work and shield them. Nigerians now routinely use cellular banking apps, USSD providers, web banking, and prompt transfers for on a regular basis transactions. What was as soon as approached with warning has turn into mainstream, largely as a result of clients belief the methods working behind the scenes.
For policymakers, the implications are clear. NIBSS needs to be seen not merely as a technical service supplier, however a strategic nationwide asset. Its position sits on the intersection {of financial} stability, knowledge governance, cybersecurity, and {economic} inclusion.
As Nigeria pushes towards a cash-lite economic system and a extra digitised public finance system, the lesson is unmistakable: belief should be designed, protected, and ruled. NIBSS has proven that when identification is credible and infrastructure is dependable, confidence follows. The problem for presidency and regulators is to recognise this success, strengthen it, and make sure that Nigeria’s digital banking future stays anchored on accountability slightly than comfort alone.
Nigeria’s digital banking spine will not be constructed solely on code and cables. It’s constructed on belief—and NIBSS has been central to its building. Right now, NIBSS beneath Oiwoh and his government administration staff stands not simply as a expertise supplier, however as a central belief establishment in Nigeria’s digital economic system.
Felix Ifijeh writes from Port Harcourt, River State.