For years, a hidden tax has constrained African finance. A business in Lagos waits days for a cross-border payment, losing value along the way. A family in Soweto relies on informal funeral schemes and rotating savings clubs, entirely outside the formal banking system. These are not isolated failures. They are symptoms of two distinct, yet related, structural problems.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) have now published two of the most significant financial policy documents of 2026. Read together, they reveal a continental shift. Regulators are no longer just rule-makers. They are becoming architects of the next phase of financial integration and inclusion.
Nigeria: A Regulator That Has Learned to Partner
On February 2, 2026, the CBN released its Fintech Policy Insight Report, developed through surveys, a closed-door stakeholder workshop, and a dedicated fintech roundtable. The report is the clearest signal yet that the regulator is actively designing the next phase of growth for the ecosystem it oversees.
Nigeria’s fintech credentials are not in question. The country rolled out nationwide real-time payments in 2011, before the United States or India. In 2024, close to 11 billion transactions were processed through the NIBSS Instant Payment platform, doubling from 5 billion in 2022. That same year, Nigerian startups raised over $520 million in equity funding.
The report’s proposals draw visibly from the BVN implementation template. The flagship idea is a Standing Fintech Engagement Forum, modelled on the Bankers’ Committee, to meet quarterly for two-way dialogue and policy co-creation. Alongside it, the report proposes a Single Regulatory Window for licensing across agencies, and a Compliance-as-a-Service (CaaS) utility: a shared platform to centralise reporting obligations.
To guard against stalling, the report proposes a Fintech Reform Delivery Secretariat within the CBN. The report is explicit: without such a structure, “there is a high risk that implementation efforts stall”.
The CBN has a track record of bold regulatory bets that ultimately reshape markets. Its cashless policy, launched in 2012, took a decade of iteration before POS transactions hit 18 trillion naira in 2024. Its initial restrictions on crypto gave way in December 2023 to a structured licensing framework. The Bank Verification Number, launched in 2014 with the Bankers’ Committee, now underpins over 67.8 million customer registrations, the biometric backbone of Nigerian digital finance.
The through-line is a regulator that learns, adapts, and eventually lands on the right framework. The fintech report suggests the CBN is applying that same instinct earlier this time, starting in partnership mode.
South Africa: Evidence That Open Banking Works
While the CBN is building a partnership framework, the SARB is building the evidence base for a specific policy lever. A new SARB working paper, authored by researchers from Stellenbosch University and the University of Ghana, examines the effect of open banking on financial inclusion in South Africa using individual-level survey data from 2023.
The results are significant. The study finds that open banking significantly reduces the number of unbanked individuals, improves bank transaction frequency, and increases the use of credit, saving and insurance services.
However, the paper also issues a critical warning: improperly targeted open banking could exacerbate banking exclusion. The effect is even greater when open banking platforms are targeted, with spillover to non-targeted product categories. But heavy reliance on non-bank and informal credit suggests constrained access to affordable, long-term financing. For micro and small enterprises, the implication is more acute: limited access to formal bank lending restricts working capital expansion, asset acquisition and business scaling.
The paper’s conclusion is clear. Open banking is an alternative way to increase participation in the financial sector beyond simply holding a bank account. Policymakers must design policies that enhance digital literacy and enforce the sharing of credit information, while ensuring appropriate regulation mitigates risks related to consumer data.
The Opportunity for Financial Services Leaders
Read together, the CBN’s policy roadmap and the SARB’s research point to a single conclusion. The next wave of African financial growth will not come from isolated innovation. It will come from regulated, data-driven integration.
The CBN is building the permanent engagement structure to co-create rules with the industry it oversees. The SARB is providing the empirical justification for open banking as an inclusion tool, while cautioning against unintended consequences. Both are signaling that regulators are moving from reactive oversight to proactive infrastructure building.
For forward-thinking banks, fintechs, and payment providers, the implications are immediate:
- Regulatory engagement is now a competitive variable. The CBN’s Standing Fintech Engagement Forum and Fintech Reform Delivery Secretariat mean that institutions with a clear voice in policy co-creation will shape the rules of the market.
- Open banking is not a theory; it is a measured reality. The SARB’s evidence shows concrete reductions in the unbanked population and increased use of formal credit, savings, and insurance. Leaders who build for this will capture value from financial inclusion at scale.
- Implementation discipline matters more than policy design. The CBN’s explicit warning about stalling applies equally to private sector actors. A single evidence pack, fixed review cadence, and clear stage gates must apply to open banking and regulatory compliance projects just as they do to AI investments.
The question for financial services leaders is no longer whether regulators will change the operating environment. The question is which institutions will be prepared to move when the new infrastructure is live.
For forward-thinking leaders across African banking, fintech, and payment infrastructure, the CBN and SARB have just published the strategic roadmap. The discipline now is to read, align, and build.
SOURCES:
https://insights.techcabal.com/the-cbn-has-a-plan-to-make-regulation-work-for-fintechs-here-is-what-it-looks-like/
https://www.resbank.co.za/content/dam/sarb/publications/working-papers/2026/26-07/financial-inclusion-sa.pdf