Nigeria has a big fraud issue with Point-of-Sale machines and the CBN is finally stepping in.
From August 1, 2026, CBN will fully enforce new rules. Every PoS terminal must stay within 70 metres of its registered address. If it moves outside that zone, it stops working.
This change matters because often times fraudsters move terminals to new locations and run shady transactions. Agents also operate outside their approved business setup. That makes it hard to track money laundering because no one knows where the terminal actually is.
CBN is forcing all banks, fintechs, mobile money operators, and PoS agents to geo-tag their terminals and link them to real business locations. Straying outside of 70m will result in terminal shuts down.
CBN first announced this in August 2025 and gave 60 days to comply. That deadline passed. They extended it, then extended it again. The radius also went from 10m to 70m because operators said 10m was too tight.
All banks and payment companies must prove they’ve complied by July 31, 2026. That’s 60 days away. The deadline has been pushed twice already.
Nigeria moved trillions of naira through PoS last year. The system needs better oversight. Whether CBN holds this new deadline will show how serious the industry is about fixing fraud.
