Bluecode Africa Appoints Ex-CBN Deputy Governor, Moghalu As Advisory Board Chair for Nigeria Entry

Bluecode Africa, the European payments infrastructure operator backed by leading US and European institutional investors, today announced the appointment of Professor Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu as Chairman of the Advisory Board of its Nigerian subsidiary, Bluecode Payments Nigeria Limited (RC1642496), as the company formally enters the Nigerian market.

Professor Moghalu served as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria from 2009 to 2014, heading the Financial System Stability and Operations Directorates at different periods.

He led the team that introduced the unique-identifier Bank Verification Number (BVN), enrolling 50 million banking users, simplifying Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures, and doubled Nigeria’s financial inclusion rate from 33 to 60 per cent.

His return to the Nigerian payments space signals that Bluecode is entering not as a disruptor of Nigeria’s banking system but as its infrastructure partner.

The announcement comes as the Central Bank of Nigeria’s newly published Payments System Vision 2028 sets interoperability, QR-based acceptance and pan-African connectivity as its defining objectives for Nigeria’s financial system, the type of interoperable infrastructure Bluecode Africa has built and is now activating in the Nigerian market.

“Nigeria does not need more payment apps. It needs infrastructure that makes every app work together. Bluecode Africa has built exactly that: rails that connect Nigeria’s financial institutions to each other and to the world without displacing any of them. I return to this space because the mission is right and the moment is right.”

Bluecode Africa operates interoperable QR-based payment rails that sit above existing bank infrastructure, connecting financial institutions, fintechs and merchants through a single, unified acceptance layer.

The model is explicitly bank-friendly: banks retain their customer relationships, earn interchange revenue and offer their users a dramatically expanded acceptance network spanning more than 160 million merchant points globally.

The company’s infrastructure is already live and integrated with Nigeria’s ChamsSwitch and NIBSS-linked rails.

In March 2026 the company participated in the NIBSS QR Dynamic QR Demo Day in Lagos, where it demonstrated a consumer completing a payment at a Bluecode-accepting merchant using a QR-enabled bank app with a single scan: no new app download, no additional merchant integration, two previously independent payment schemes connected in real time at the point of sale.

The Nigerian network now spans more than 100,000 merchants and over 35 million enabled wallets.

“We have been building this infrastructure in Nigeria for three years. The rails are live, the transactions are running and the banking partnerships are ready to activate. Professor Moghalu’s chairmanship signals to every institution in this market that Bluecode Africa is a long-term partner, not a passing visitor,” said Davidson Regha, Chief Executive, Bluecode Payments Nigeria Limited.

The appointment was jointly announced by Chris Pirkner, Founder of Bluecode, and Odin Krismayr, Managing Director of Bluecode Africa, who described it as a foundational governance decision for the company’s Nigerian and continental operations.

The Nigerian market entry has been structured by GAN International, the London-based sovereign and project finance advisory firm led by Brigitte Tilley-Gyado MA (Cantab), who has worked alongside Professor Moghalu for over a decade on strategy and international positioning across African sovereign finance and infrastructure.

Brigitte Tilley-Gyado MA (Cantab), Managing Partner, GAN International, and Strategic Adviser to Bluecode Africa disclosed, “What Bluecode has built is precisely what Nigeria’s financial system needs at this moment. The infrastructure connects banks, fintechs and merchants without competing with any of them. That is a rare thing, and it deserves to succeed here.”