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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been urged to broaden its regulatory oversight to include risks arising from cloud providers, telecommunications networks, fintech companies and other technology partners that increasingly support the financial system.
Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, said the growing dependence of banks and financial institutions on interconnected digital infrastructure had made traditional approaches to financial supervision insufficient.
Speaking on digital transformation, supervision, innovation and operational resilience at the 15th Retreat of the CBN Committee of Departmental Directors in Lagos, Inuwa said disruptions at external technology providers could spread across the financial ecosystem, even when individual banks remained operational.
“Financial stability now depends on resilient technology and Nigeria’s capacity for digital self-determination,” Inuwa said.
Financial supervision faces new technology risks
According to the NITDA chief, regulators must increasingly look beyond individual financial institutions and understand the wider ecosystem supporting banking and payment services.
He argued that regulators need greater visibility into the technology providers, platforms and infrastructure on which financial institutions depend.
“We need to be ahead of the institutions we regulate. We cannot wait for regulated institutions to submit returns before we analyse and understand what is happening. We need end-to-end visibility of the ecosystem,” he said.
The warning comes as Nigeria’s financial system becomes increasingly dependent on digital channels, including mobile banking, electronic payments, fintech platforms and cloud-based services.
This interconnectedness creates additional exposure to third-party and fourth-party risks. A financial institution may outsource a critical service to one technology provider, which could itself depend on another provider for cloud infrastructure, connectivity or other essential services.
A disruption at any point in that chain could therefore affect multiple financial institutions simultaneously.
CBN strengthens technology safeguards
The CBN has already introduced measures aimed at improving the resilience of Nigeria’s payment infrastructure.
Among these is a directive requiring payment acquirers, processors and terminal service providers to maintain dual connections to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) and Unified Payment Services to reduce reliance on a single transaction channel.
The apex bank has also increased its focus on automated financial crime controls, including baseline standards for automated anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing and counter-proliferation financing systems.
Inuwa said regulatory oversight should now go further by incorporating technology-supplier risks, cloud infrastructure, data protection, artificial intelligence and the long-term sustainability of digital infrastructure.
Cloud infrastructure becomes a regulatory concern
Cloud computing is emerging as a particularly important component of financial-sector resilience as banks and fintechs increasingly use external infrastructure to deliver digital services.
NITDA recently introduced regulatory instruments covering cloud computing and digital infrastructure, alongside a National Cloud Investment Strategy designed to strengthen Nigeria’s domestic cloud and data-centre capacity.
The agency is expected to commence registration, technical assessment and certification of cloud and digital infrastructure providers through a national digital regulatory platform in October.
The development has implications for financial-sector regulation because cloud infrastructure increasingly supports critical banking, payments and fintech operations.
For Inuwa, operational resilience must therefore extend beyond conventional cybersecurity controls to include the possibility of simultaneous failures across connectivity providers, cloud platforms and digital service providers.
AI introduces another layer of risk
The NITDA DG also highlighted the growing security implications of artificial intelligence, noting that AI is being deployed both to strengthen cyber defences and to develop more sophisticated attacks.
He said financial institutions and regulators must develop the capacity to use AI defensively while ensuring that AI-enabled systems themselves are protected from manipulation and compromise.
“AI systems themselves are becoming targets for sophisticated attacks,” he said.
The increasing use of AI in financial services therefore creates a dual regulatory challenge: ensuring institutions can benefit from the technology while managing emerging operational, cybersecurity and data risks.
Digital sovereignty linked to financial stability
Inuwa also connected digital infrastructure resilience with Nigeria’s broader digital sovereignty objectives.
He argued that the country’s ability to guarantee the stability of critical financial services would increasingly depend on its capacity to develop, control and maintain essential digital infrastructure.
“If we do not build, control and maintain sovereignty over critical digital infrastructure, how can we guarantee the stability and integrity of our financial system?” he asked.
His comments reinforce the growing overlap between technology regulation and financial-sector supervision as banks, payment companies and fintechs become increasingly dependent on external digital infrastructure.
CBN pushes institutional reform
The call comes as the CBN, under Governor Olayemi Cardoso, continues efforts to strengthen the banking system, modernise payment infrastructure, expand financial inclusion and support responsible fintech innovation.
Speaking virtually at the retreat, Cardoso said the Bank’s reforms were intended to become embedded in its institutional culture, systems and processes rather than remain associated with individual leadership.
“The bank is in a good place. Our staff have nothing to fear,” he said, stressing the importance of institutionalising reforms within the central bank.
Chairman of the CBN Committee of Departmental Directors, Jimoh Musa Itoba, described directors as important anchors of the institution and urged participants to use the retreat to develop practical measures capable of strengthening financial stability and supporting economic growth.
For financial regulators, the emerging challenge is therefore no longer simply how to supervise increasingly digital banks, but how to oversee a financial ecosystem in which critical risks can originate outside the institutions themselves.
As Inuwa noted, the future of supervision will require regulators to understand and respond to risks across the entire digital ecosystem, making technology resilience, third-party risk management, regulatory intelligence and digital infrastructure oversight increasingly central to financial stability.
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