CBN Unveils Payment System Vision 2028, Targets 95% Financial Inclusion

CBN Aims to Bring 50 Million More Nigerians Into Banking

At a financial stakeholder gathering in Abuja, Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Olayemi Cardoso urged the nation to look at a different type of national infrastructure.

Unveiling the Payments System Vision 2028. Commonly called PSV 2028, Cardoso introduced a three-year strategic roadmap designed to rebuild how money moves across the country completely. To make his point clear, he used a simple comparison. He explained that just as the government lays down physical roads to transport goods, the apex bank must build and maintain the invisible roads that allow money to flow without friction.

For the average citizen, this policy is a direct attempt to fix daily frustrations. We have all dealt with a money transfer that gets trapped in the network, a mobile app that fails to open during an emergency, or a payment confirmation that takes hours to arrive. The core goal of PSV 2028 is to make these technical glitches a thing of the past, ensuring that transfers are completed safely and almost instantly.

However, the most ambitious part of this plan is its focus on human inclusion. Right now, roughly 26% of Nigerian adults operate entirely outside the formal financial net, meaning they have no bank accounts or digital wallets. The central bank wants to shrink this gap by pushing Nigeria’s financial inclusion rate to a massive 95% by 2028.

In real numbers, this means onboarding 50 million unbanked individuals, including market traders, rural farmers, roadside artisans, and small business owners. By bringing them into the digital economy, the bank will register their accounts with Bank Verification Numbers, giving them a verified financial identity that protects their money from physical theft.

To support this shift, the central bank plans to heavily reduce the country’s reliance on physical cash. Currently, a staggering 90% of Nigeria's cash circulates completely outside the banking system. The new strategy aims to pull that number down below 40%. The bank plans to do this by expanding cheap, mobile-first payment options, such as QR codes and tap-to-phone systems, making it easier for rural communities to go cashless.

Naturally, every day, people will only ditch cash if they feel their digital money is safe. To protect users from internet thieves, the central bank is deploying artificial intelligence and automated systems to monitor networks in real-time. The ultimate target is to drop digital fraud losses to less than 0.001% of total transaction values.

Cardoso openly acknowledged that writing a beautiful policy document is the easy part. Nigeria has a long history of launching bright ideas that stall during implementation. Because of this, the central bank governor emphasised that the true success of PSV 2028 will not be judged by words on paper, but by hard execution. The bank promises to hold institutions strictly accountable to ensure these invisible roads actually deliver for every Nigerian.

For a deeper look into how the central bank officially introduced this initiative to the public, you can watch this CBN PSV 2028 Launch Broadcast, which covers the key announcements regarding financial inclusion and digital infrastructure directly from the launch event.