The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has endorsed the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) directive requiring banks and fintechs to host payment transaction data locally.
ALTON Chairman Gbenga Adebayo stated this in an interview with reporters in Lagos on Saturday.
The CBN directive mandates banks, fintechs, and other payment service providers to store payment data generated in Nigeria on local servers starting January 1, 2027. The measure aims to strengthen oversight of Nigeria’s growing digital payments ecosystem.
Adebayo emphasized that data sovereignty requires countries to control their entire data value chain, including collection, management, storage, and integrity.
“We cannot continue outsourcing that to other jurisdictions. Hosting our data locally is better for us,” he said.
He explained that local hosting allows Nigeria to manage data end-to-end and ensures data integrity, while hosting outside the country increases communication delays, latency, and costs.
“For transactions with data hosted abroad, communication must go back and forth, increasing latency and retrieval costs,” he noted.
Adebayo described the directive as a crucial step toward achieving national data sovereignty.
He dismissed concerns about infrastructure readiness, pointing out Nigeria already has significant data centre capacity.
“Several Nigerian-owned facilities currently host data for organizations abroad. If overseas companies can host data here, why can’t we?” he asked.
He argued that local hosting would reduce dependence on foreign infrastructure and improve data security, emphasizing that concerns over security and reliability should not justify reliance on foreign providers.
“No one can protect your data better than you,” he said.
Adebayo also highlighted cost benefits, noting organizations hosting data locally would pay in naira, reducing exposure to exchange rate fluctuations and lowering long-term costs.
Nigeria currently has about six Tier III data centres, with more under development. However, he stressed capacity matters more than the number of facilities.
“It’s not just about the numbers; it’s about what they can host,” he said.
He urged stakeholders to accelerate efforts toward domestic data hosting and management, emphasizing that “the sooner we domesticate our data, the better for us.”
