Mohammed Shosanya
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has given nod for the operation of Open Banking in Nigeria.
The idea behind the initiative is to promote innovations and broaden the range of financial products and services available to bank customers,the guideline establishing open banking quoted.
The apex bank said the guidelines are anticipated to drive competition and improve accessibility to financial and payments services.
It has warned participants in Open Banking to “adhere strictly to security standards when accessing and storing data, and to observe minimum privacy, operational, customer experience and risk management standards as prescribed by the bank”.
On those that will operate in the Open Banking ecosystem, the apex bank said it has identified “any organisation that has data of customers which may be exchanged with other entities for the purpose of providing innovative financial services within Nigeria.
It added:“Entities participating in Open Banking are categorised into two. They: API Provider (AP): this refers to a participant that uses Application Programming Interface (API) to avail data or service to another participant.’’