The Central Bank of Nigeria has ordered banks, fintechs and licensed payment operators to install GPS tracking on all Point of Sale (PoS) terminals.
This was communicated in a circular dated August 25, signed by Rakiya Yusuf, Director of the Payments System Supervision Department, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
According to the circular, all PoS devices must now have native geo-location services enabled with double-frequency GPS receivers for reliable tracking.
Also, operators are required to register each terminal with a payment terminal service aggregator and provide accurate coordinates of the merchant or agent’s business location.
The circular reads:
“Geo-location data must be captured at transaction initiation and included in the message payload as a mandatory reporting field: Terminals not directly routed to a PTSA are not permitted to transact.
“All existing terminals and newly registered terminals must ensure strict adherence always to approved MSC code per sector.
“All existing terminals must be geo-tagged within 60 days of this circular; new terminals going forward must be geo-tagged before certification and activation.”
Also, existing machines must be geo-tagged within 60 days of the directive, while new devices must be tagged before certification and activation.
