Nigeria's central bank says all PoS terminals in Nigeria have 60 days to be geo-tagged
If a PoS terminal is used outside where it was registered, it's getting blocked.
In Nigeria, Point-of-Sale (PoS) agents used to be people you came across like finding diamonds on the street, pretty rare. But over the last few years, they've gone from being a rare sighting to finding at least five agents on any random street nowadays.
Nigerians realized how much of a hassle it was to queue for long hours at ATMs, and so quick withdrawals from PoS agents simply made too much sense. But, with the surge in volume, of course, there's always the possibility of bad players slipping in to make a quick buck wherever they can. The government has decided to curb as much of this as possible, as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) now mandates that PoS terminals be geo-tagged. Any device used outside its registered location will be blocked.
Kelechi Edeh
In other words, if you are a PoS operator and you use your device outside where you registered it, even just more than 10 metres away, it could soon stop working.
For devices already in circulation, operators will need to upgrade them with built-in GPS systems and connect them to the National Central Switch, which allows regulators to track locations in real time. New PoS machines won’t even be activated unless they’re geo-tagged from the start. Licensed operators such as Moniepoint, OPay, PalmPay, and the banks are on the hook to make sure every single device in their networks complies with these rules.
The CBN’s circular, issued on August 25, 2025, provides a 60-day window for compliance, with checks commencing on October 20. That’s not a lot of time considering Nigeria had about 5.9 million active PoS terminals out of 8.36 million registered as of March 2025. Add to that the fact that PoS agents crossed 1.5 million in 2023, roughly one for every 80 people, and it’s easy to see why regulators feel the need to tighten control.
Louis Eriakha
This isn’t the first clampdown either. Just last year, operators were required to route transactions through licensed aggregators and register with the Corporate Affairs Commission. But this new rule feels like the strictest move yet in controlling how the industry operates.
If the mandate works as planned, fraud should decline, customers may feel safer using PoS services, and regulators will gain sharper oversight of Nigeria’s booming payments scene. For bad players, though, the golden age of loosely monitored PoS transactions is officially winding down.
