FirstBank, Fidelity lead as National Payment Stack transactions value climbs to N1.4trn

The National Payment Stack (NPS), a sovereign, ISO 20022 compliant digital infrastructure, has recorded 26.55 million transactions valued at N1.4 trillion across 48 participating institutions.

The NIBSS National Payment Stack (NPS), said that NPS, a sovereign, ISO 20022 compliant digital infrastructure designed to succeed legacy NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) system and modernize Nigeria’s financial ecosystem, adding that the  initial operational metrics highlight rapid commercial adoption,

Unifying payments, identity, and data onto a single intelligent rail, the multi-currency architecture bridges transaction processing and payment intelligence while establishing robust cross-border capabilities.

According to NIBSS, First Bank of Nigeria leads the industry in total transaction volume, while Fidelity Bank holds the lead in overall transaction value.

Other key early adopters driving network scale also include Guaranty Trust Bank, Sterling Bank, Access Bank and Moniepoint.

The platform introduces key operational and structural advances across the financial sector, adding that  ISO 20022 Data Architecture enables structured, metadata-rich transactions that automate corporate reconciliation, streamline merchant collections, and power request-to-pay invoicing.

The NIBSS said that  unified Payment Rails consolidates single transfers and high-volume corporate disbursements onto one platform, supporting direct debits, asynchronous processing, and deferred settlement options while embedded Security & Compliance integrates automated sanction screening, account validation, end-to-end encryption, and in-flight risk scoring to detect fraud prior to execution.

The NIBSS said that the Treasury Precision delivers real-time net position visibility and continuous settlement accounting to optimize liquidity management for participating lenders.

Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NIBSS, Premier Oiwoh, said “The National Payment Stack represents is an economic catalyst moving our financial infrastructure from basic transaction processing to comprehensive payment intelligence.”

Reinforcing this call to action, Director of the Payments System Supervision Department at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr. (Mrs.) Rakiya Opemi Yusuf,  urged financial institutions nationwide to accelerate their NPS integration during a recent working visit to NIBSS Headquarters. Her statement reaffirms the apex bank’s mandatory and full regulatory support for the ISO 20022 standard in Nigeria’s payment system.