The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, said Nigeria’s National Digital Invoicing and Financial Optimisation Strategy (NDIFS) must go beyond improving tax compliance to unlock affordable working capital for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), manufacturers, exporters and other productive businesses.

Oduwole, who spoke at the inaugural meeting of the NDIFS Steering Committee in Abuja, said the initiative should establish a national receivables-finance corridor through which verified invoices could be converted into transparent, regulated and affordable working capital.

She said many micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were constrained not necessarily by a lack of business opportunities but by cash trapped in receivables.

According to her, prolonged delays in converting invoices to cash could slow production, tighten inventories, weaken suppliers and result in lost export opportunities.

She said the proposed receivables-finance corridor should cover verified invoices generated by exporters, manufacturers, agro-processors, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) value chains and eligible public-sector counterparties.

Oduwole identified four critical components for the system: a trusted digital rail, a sound legal framework, a financing rail and a functioning market rail.

The digital rail, she explained, would provide authentic invoices, validated transaction data, and interoperable systems, while the legal framework would provide certainty regarding assignment, enforceability, priority, and collateral architecture.

She said this should include alignment with the Factoring, Assignments and Receivables Financing Bill and the National Collateral Registry.

The financing component would bring together banks, development finance institutions, fintechs, insurers and guarantors, while capital-market investors could provide additional liquidity and risk-sharing as the system matures.

The market rail, she added, would be driven by Nigerian enterprises, exporters, anchor buyers and supplier networks generating the receivables that the financing system would support.

Oduwole stressed that the four components must develop simultaneously.

“Trusted data without financing would not resolve the liquidity challenge, while financing without legal certainty would be difficult to scale,” she said.

She also warned that technology without interoperability could create new silos, while a national platform that failed to work for businesses could merely reproduce existing inefficiencies in digital form.

According to her, the committee’s performance should be measured by the volume of verified receivables entering the system, the amount of financing unlocked, the number of MSMEs, exporters and productive suppliers reached, financing costs, turnaround time and repayment performance.

She identified five key disciplines for the committee, beginning with designing the e-invoicing system for financeability from inception.

Oduwole said e-invoicing should support both revenue integrity and business financing rather than prioritising one at the expense of the other.

She also called for interoperability among government systems, banks, fintechs, enterprise resource planning platforms, identity systems and collateral infrastructure.

She said data protection, cybersecurity, fair pricing, transparent rules and strong governance must remain central to maintaining trust in the system.

Oduwole directed the secretariat and relevant institutions to develop a controlled 90-day pilot involving selected exporters, productive value chains and anchor businesses, with measurable outcomes.

She said the committee’s terms of reference mandate it to advise on strategic direction and sequencing, review the implementation roadmap, identify policy and regulatory measures, promote institutional alignment, manage delivery risks and support stakeholder engagement.

The pilot, she added, must be measurable from inception using indicators including the value of receivables verified, value financed, number of businesses reached, cost of finance, turnaround time and overall impact.