CBN data localisation policy forces banks and fintechs to store customer and transaction data in Nigeria by Jan 2027, and data centres expect an investment surge.
The CBN data localisation policy will require banks, payment service providers, and fintechs to store customer and transaction data inside Nigeria by January 2027.
Large data centre operators say the rule could drive new investment in local data centres and reduce reliance on overseas cloud infrastructure.
Nigeria’s Central Bank has directed regulated financial institutions to localise customer and transaction data within Nigeria by January 2027. Data localisation means sensitive data must be stored and processed in-country, instead of being hosted on servers in Europe or North America.
Data centre operators are positioning the policy as an economic tailwind. Ikechukwu Nnamani, CEO of Digital Realty Nigeria, told Nairametrics that local hosting should increase demand for data centre capacity. That demand can lead to expansions of existing facilities and new builds.
Nnamani also argued that hosting more banking and fintech workloads locally can improve latency, which is the time it takes for data to travel between systems. Lower latency often means faster app performance for digital banking, card payments, and other real-time services.
A second debate is whether Nigeria has enough data centre infrastructure to absorb the expected migration. Dr. Ayotunde Coker, CEO of Open Access Data Centres, said capacity concerns are overstated and pointed to Nigeria’s growing role as a regional digital infrastructure hub.
If banks and fintechs move more workloads back into Nigeria, local data centres could see a jump in contracts for colocation and cloud hosting. Colocation is rented space for servers, similar to leasing a secure warehouse for computing equipment.
Operators also expect foreign exchange savings. Many institutions currently pay for offshore hosting in dollars, so local hosting could shift part of that spend into naira and reduce pressure on FX demand.
For fintechs, the policy could raise compliance costs in the short term, especially for firms built on foreign cloud providers. But it may also push more local partnerships with infrastructure providers such as CloudAfrica and Nobus Cloud, plus stronger planning around cybersecurity and data governance.
The next big question is execution. The market will watch for enforcement details, migration timelines, and whether supporting infrastructure like power and fibre connectivity can keep up with faster data centre build-outs.
Primary Source: Nairametrics
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