MTN Says Fintechs Face Bigger Data Localisation Challenge Than Banks

Fintechs and newer digital financial institutions could face a heavier data migration burden than established Nigerian banks as the Central Bank of Nigeria’s January 2027 localisation deadline approaches.

The CBN’s directive requires payment transaction data generated in Nigeria to be stored and managed locally, forcing institutions that rely on overseas infrastructure to review their technology architecture and migration plans.

While some banks have already moved significant workloads into Nigeria, the readiness of fintechs and other newer financial services providers is emerging as a more pressing industry question.

Lynda Saint-Nwafor, Chief Enterprise Business Officer, MTN Nigeria, said the level of preparedness differs across the financial services industry.

“A lot of Nigerian banks, the first-generation banks, do have most of their data, most of their workloads localised locally already,” she said. “So the fintechs are the ones who may have most of their data externalised.”

Her assessment places greater attention on fintechs and digital financial businesses that have built their operations around foreign cloud environments and may now have to move critical workloads into Nigerian infrastructure.

The distinction has also emerged in industry reporting. BusinessDay reported in July that Nigerian banks had largely completed localisation of their payment transaction data, while fintech companies, digital banks and other financial institutions that still host data overseas were racing to comply.

The report said many institutions were still evaluating migration strategies, infrastructure readiness, cybersecurity risks and compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act.

The challenge, for fintechs, may extend beyond identifying a local data centre. Saint-Nwafor said organisations need to understand where their data sits and identify infrastructure partners with the capacity, competence and scalability to handle the migration.

“We need to come together as an industry, understand where the data sits and identify the partners with the capacity, competence and scalability to support a seamless migration. We also need to demonstrate good faith by showing that we are already taking concrete steps towards meeting the requirement,” she said.

The scale of Nigeria’s digital financial system adds to the complexity of moving critical data and workloads into local infrastructure. NIBSS reported in August that its new National Payment Stack had processed 26.55 million transactions valued at ₦1.4 trillion across 48 participating institutions, while CBN data showed that electronic payment transactions across six channels were worth ₦1.053 quadrillion in Q1 2026.

The scale of activity means migration cannot be treated as a routine infrastructure change for institutions whose systems support high volumes of financial transactions.

Saint-Nwafor said Nigeria has the infrastructure and technical capacity to support organisations undertaking the transition, but the responsibility remains with individual operators to understand their systems and plan the migration properly.

“I believe from a supply perspective, we are ready. We have built infrastructure and we have people, Nigerians, who have been developed and capacitated to help organisations migrate the data,” she said.

With January 2027 approaching, the gap between institutions that have already localised their workloads and those still assessing their options is likely to become increasingly important to the industry’s compliance effort.