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NIBSS adopts Transactility’s jPOS-based technology for the National Payment Stack.
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New platform supports instant transfers, QR payments, phone number-based addressing, and bulk transactions.
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Open-source architecture gives NIBSS greater control over platform development and future upgrades.
October 13, (THEWILL) – The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has adopted technology from Transactility to develop its National Payment Stack (NPS), a next-generation instant payments platform designed to strengthen Nigeria’s digital payment infrastructure.
The platform uses Transactility’s jPOS-based technology, including the jPTS switch, to support ISO 20022 messaging, a global standard designed to improve the structure and exchange of financial transaction data.
According to the organisations, NIBSS developed the NPS using a modular architecture that combines locally engineered capabilities with selected open-source and enterprise technologies to meet the requirements of Nigeria’s payments ecosystem.
The adoption builds on NIBSS’s longstanding use of jPOS technology for transaction processing, particularly under the ISO 8583 messaging standard.
For the new platform, the payment infrastructure operator leveraged jPTS and its ISO 20022 capabilities to develop a switch tailored to the scale and operational demands of Nigeria’s financial system.
Open-source technology offers flexibility
A key feature of the NPS architecture is its reliance on source-accessible technology, which allows NIBSS to customise and extend the platform according to market developments and regulatory requirements.
With access to the underlying source code, NIBSS retains control over the platform’s architecture, development roadmap, operational enhancements and intellectual property, reducing its dependence on proprietary vendors’ software release schedules.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NIBSS, Premier Oiwoh, said the platform was designed to meet the scale and demands of the Nigerian payments market.
“The NPS was designed and built for the scale and demands of the Nigerian payments market. The jPOS ecosystem gives us the flexibility to continue developing the platform as the ecosystem evolves,” he said.
The architecture is expected to provide room for NIBSS to introduce additional capabilities as payment needs change, while enabling the organisation to maintain greater control over how the infrastructure develops.
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Platform supports multiple payment channels
The National Payment Stack is designed to support several payment services, including instant account-to-account transfers, QR-code merchant payments, alias-based addressing through identifiers such as phone numbers, and bulk payments.
These capabilities are intended to support different transaction types across the financial ecosystem, including transfers between bank accounts and payments to merchants.
The platform is also designed to deliver the performance and availability required of national payment infrastructure, while providing a foundation for the introduction of additional financial services.
Its use of ISO 20022 messaging is another important component, as the standard supports richer and more structured payment information than legacy messaging formats, potentially improving interoperability and enabling the development of new payment services.
The Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Transactility, Alejandro Revilla, described the deployment as an important milestone for both organisations and the wider payments community.
He said the selection of technologies from the jPOS ecosystem demonstrated how open technology and local engineering could be combined to build national payment infrastructure at scale.
NIBSS strengthens payment infrastructure
Established in 1993, NIBSS is owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria and all licensed deposit money banks in the country.
The organisation operates critical financial infrastructure supporting interbank clearing and settlement, point-of-sale payments and identity verification services through the Bank Verification Number system.
Its role places it at the centre of Nigeria’s electronic payments ecosystem, where the reliability, security and scalability of transaction-processing systems are essential to financial institutions and payment service providers.
Transactility, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, is the commercial steward of jPOS, an open-source framework used to develop payment gateways and switches supporting ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 messaging.
The framework has been used for more than 25 years across payment systems in over 120 countries, according to the company.
The deployment of the National Payment Stack marks a further development in Nigeria’s payment infrastructure, combining NIBSS’s local engineering capabilities with established payment technology to support the evolution of digital financial services.
Ogochukwu Onwaeze is a writer specializing in business and economic journalism. At THEWILL News Media, she translates market trends, financial developments, and policy shifts into clear and engaging stories.
