Stakeholders Fault CBN’s January Timeline on Data Localisation, Call for Extension
Industry stakeholders have raised the concern over the January deadline given by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on data localisation.
CBN had directed all Fintech companies to return all payments data currently being hosted outside Nigeria, and host such data in Nigeria with effect from January 1, 2027.
Worried about the timing, some industry stakeholders said yesterday that the timing was rather too short and warned that the CBN’s six-month deadline for full data localisation by January 2027 is virtually impossible to achieve.
They therefore called for extension of time to meet up with the directive.
Citing severe infrastructure constraints, complex technical migrations, skyrocketing compliance costs, and largely poor engagement from CBN, the stakeholders argued that forcing such an aggressive timeframe would risk widespread service disruptions and standard compliance failures across the digital economy.
The stakeholders said this in Lagos during a panel session at the GrowthX Forum, organised by TechEconomy.
Although the directive is aimed at enhancing data sovereignty and security by keeping citizen data within Nigeria, the stakeholders maintained that building compliant cloud architecture would require years, not months.
They stressed that without a phased implementation roadmap, major service providers may be forced to suspend operations.
Panelists argued that forcing full migration onto local servers by January 2027 would risk forcing institutions into superficial “box-ticking” compliance rather than building operational resilience.
The Chief Technology Officer, FCMB, Blessing Ehize, highlighted a major regulatory gap.
According to him, a major point of friction is the perceived lack of direct regulatory engagement trailing the policy announcement.
Ehize disclosed that despite attempts through groups like the Committee of Bank CIOs, clarity remains elusive regarding what specific data must sit on-premise versus what can reside in hybrid cloud environments.
“Now, this is the problem. To bring payment data back on-premise, for the last three months, we’ve not been able to engage effectively with the Central Bank of Nigeria as the Committee of Bank CIOs to get clarity on these issues. I mean, you can ask, I’m representing banks. From what I know, there’s not been a meeting held to say, ‘This is what it means’ in terms of clarity. So it’s vague. You start thinking, ‘Are we really trying to play with the financial sector?’ This is where we need to start from: draw a roadmap. By this milestone, we should have done this. We really have the capacity to do this as a country, but we just need to plan it and not rush the Nigerian way,” he stated.
Deputy Managing Director, eTranzact, Hakeem Adeniji-Adele, however, said the CBN had been engaging the Fintech community.
Adeniji-Adele, however, frowned at the six months deadline, stressing that the timing is rather too short, looking at the enormous data sitting in the cloud somewhere.
“I believe, is quite short, simply because of the amount of load that needs to be moved. I feel the solution should be a phased approach. Compute and storage should be divided into two, as opposed to telling everyone to move at once,” he said.
Speaking about the readiness of Data Centre operators to host data locally, the Chief Executive Officer, Open Access Data Centre (OADC), Dr. Ayotunde Coker, advised banks to respond very quickly in assessing the data that they have locally and internationally.
Coker said: “They should also look at the capacity and capability of where they want to migrate to and to do that effectively, and then come up with the implementation plan. Banks should not see the directive from CBN as an impossible task.
“They should start off by architecting the solution and the roadmap to achieving it quickly. If there are any hiccups in that process, they can present it and demonstrate how they will manage the risk. Banks must be active and not passive in carrying out the CBN’s directive on data localisation.”
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