Nigeria's Central Bank has quietly reversed one of its most contested payment rules. The CBN issued a circular on May 29, widening the zone in which PoS terminals can legally operate from 10 metres to 70 metres while pushing the enforcement deadline for its geo-fencing framework to August 1, 2026. For the millions of Nigerians whose daily financial lives run through a PoS agent, the update carries real weight.
The original 10-metre rule, introduced in August 2025, was already drawing fire from agents and payment operators across the country. The CBN has now conceded the point at least partially.
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Why the 10-Metre Rule Was Always Going to Break
The math never worked. Nigeria has roughly 1,600 PoS agents per square kilometre. As of March 2025, 8.36 million terminals were registered nationwide, with 5.90 million actively deployed. Confining each of those terminals to a 10-metre bubble around a fixed GPS coordinate ignored the reality of how agent banking actually operates on Nigerian streets in markets, outside shops, inside compounds, and across multiple counters.
The CBN introduced geo-fencing after ₦10.51 trillion passed through PoS terminals in Q1 2025 alone, a 301.67% jump from Q1 2024. That kind of volume demands oversight. But the mechanism has to fit the market it is regulating.
Under the rules, Moniepoint, OPay, PalmPay, and other operators must geo-tag every terminal and log its GPS coordinates with regulators. The framework allows the CBN to track exactly where each transaction originates and flag terminals operating outside their registered addresses. The logic is sound. The 10-metre radius was not.
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What the New Rules Actually Require
The 70-metre expansion gives agents more physical flexibility while keeping the core tracking infrastructure intact. Every terminal must still be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator, NIBSS or Unified Payment Services Limited, with verified GPS coordinates on file for each merchant or agent location.
Any terminal not routed through a PTSA is barred from processing transactions. All devices and applications must carry certification from the National Central Switch. The CBN has also asked all financial institutions to resolve outstanding operational issues with the NCS within the same compliance window. Those requirements have not changed.
What changes is the breathing room. A terminal registered to a business address can now operate across a 70-metre radius without triggering a compliance flag. For agents working inside large markets, bus parks, or multi-building compounds, that difference is practical and immediate.
The CBN's circular sets a hard deadline: evidence of compliance must reach the Director of the Payments System Supervision Department at paymentdata@cbn.gov.ng no later than July 31, 2026. August 1 is when enforcement begins.
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The Fraud Problem Has Not Gone Away
The CBN did not relax the geo-fencing framework because fraud concerns eased. It relaxed the radius because an unworkable rule produces workarounds, not compliance. Workarounds are harder to track than registered terminals operating in plain sight.
Agents have sometimes unknowingly facilitated illicit transactions when terminals operate away from their registered addresses, the exact gap that geo-fencing was designed to close. A 70-metre radius still closes it, with less friction for legitimate operators.
For Nigerian fintech companies and payment processors, August 1 is now the number to build toward. The CBN has given ground on the technical constraint. It has not given ground on the underlying requirement to know where every terminal is and what it is doing.
