The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a series of guidelines and regulations for open banking in Nigeria as part of its efforts to promote innovations in the banking and payments services sphere. Open banking is an idea or framework where third-party financial services or providers are given free access to consumers’ transaction data as collected by banking institutions and their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
The new rules were first disclosed in a report titled “Operational Guidelines for Open Banking in Nigeria” and according to the Central Bank, the rules contained within were developed with the principles of open sharing of data across various systems and widening the depth and range of financial products and services available to consumers.
Explaining further, the Central Bank said that open banking recognized the ownership and control of their data by the customers themselves as well as their right to grant access to service providers to that data. They anticipated that the adoption of the open banking system would drive more competition in the banking and finance sector and increase the access and availability of financial services to more people.
Furthermore, the Central Bank warned that all participants in the open banking system should strictly adhere to the mapped security standards while accessing and using their customers’ data, as well as privacy and risk management standards.
