CBN, NCC Set to Carry Out Routine Audits on Banks, Telcos Over Airtime Failures

A new framework from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is changing customer transactions of airtime and data services across the country. The joint exposure draft of the CBN and NCC received from the CBN and NCC dated February 5, 2026, seeks to respond to the growing complaints from customers who, after completing purchases, lose their money due to purchase failures. Many users have been affected by the debit but did not get airtime or data, and this issue has now prompted regulators to respond.

The proposal also emphasizes accountability, which is the Regulators’ primary focus. Both Regulators will be conducting routine audits of the banks, the mobile network operators, the payment service providers, and any other licensed entities participating in digital vending. These audits will be conducted either quarterly or at any interval determined by the Regulators. The purpose of these audits is to ensure and confirm compliance with the service level agreements, consumer protection, and orders on the licensed participants in the consumer transactions. This is aimed at preventing system failures from poor integrations or unlicensed middlemen.

More Strict Deadlines and Lowered Failed Transactions

Part of the draft introduces standardisation of services that each party involved has to comply with. The guidelines suggest real-time updates to each party involved after each transaction failure and real-time reversals of the transaction to each party after the failure has been confirmed. In settings such as sandboxes, refunds of data or airtime that are not fully processed are expected to take 30 seconds. The draft also instructs banks to refrain from retrying transactions, as that could lead to multiple debits to users’ accounts during a period of network unavailability, therefore limiting retry attempts to 2. 

Focusing on improving transparency on the digital system gives both regulators the opportunity to put an end to the uncertainty surrounding each transaction. They are also hoping to increase customer confidence in purchasing digitally. From a customer perspective, the effort is especially important since most of them buy data frequently and easily lose confidence in purchasing data digitally.

Increased Clarity on Performance

To keep track of performance and monitoring on a regular basis, the framework provides for a central dashboard that will be jointly managed by the two regulators. The dashboard will show in real-time failed transactions, rates of transaction reversals, levels of complaints, and breaches of service agreements. Each financial and telecom operator will be required to record and share with all relevant stakeholders, daily records of successes and failures.

Systems (service) providers will also be required, in addition to internal reporting, to publish, at least quarterly, performance scorecards, which report on the attainment of the mutually agreed service standards. This will provide an impetus for internal self-regulation and drive the operators to undertake improvement to their services prior to the regulators coming in.

The draft is currently open for comments, and Nigerian consumers, industry players and interested parties have been invited to provide feedback before the framework becomes enforceable.