The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has deployed Transactility’s jPOS technology to power its National Payment Stack (NPS), a next-generation instant payments platform designed to strengthen Nigeria’s digital payment infrastructure.

Transactility, Inc., which announced the development, said NIBSS used its open-source technology, including the jPTS payment switch, to build the platform around the ISO 20022 messaging standard.

NPS is designed to support the evolving needs of Nigeria’s payments ecosystem, combining NIBSS-developed capabilities with selected open-source and enterprise technologies.

According to Transactility, NIBSS selected its technology stack, including jPTS, an instant payment switch built on jPOS, a widely used framework for processing payment transactions.

NIBSS has relied on jPOS within its payment infrastructure for several years, particularly for processing transactions using the ISO 8583 standard. For NPS, it leveraged jPTS and its newly introduced ISO 20022 support to develop a switch tailored to Nigeria’s economic demands.

The use of open-source technology gives NIBSS access to the source code and the flexibility to customise and develop the platform to meet changing market and regulatory requirements.

It also allows NIBSS to retain control of the platform’s architecture, product roadmap and operational development, as well as the intellectual property it develops for the system, without depending entirely on a proprietary technology vendor’s release schedule.

Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NIBSS, Premier Oiwoh, said the platform was designed to meet the scale and demands of Nigeria’s 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,” Oiwoh said.

NPS supports account-to-account instant transfers, QR-code merchant payments, alias-based addressing using identifiers such as phone numbers, and bulk payments.

The platform is designed to deliver the performance and availability required of national payment infrastructure while providing a foundation for new services as the market develops.

Transactility said the deployment reflects NIBSS’ strategy of combining established payment technologies with local engineering expertise to develop infrastructure suited to Nigeria’s needs.

“This development is an important milestone for Transactility and the wider payments community,” said Alejandro Revilla, founder and chief technology officer of Transactility.

“We are proud that NIBSS selected technologies from the jPOS ecosystem for the National Payment Stack. NPS shows how open technology and local engineering can be used to build national payment infrastructure at scale,” he added.

Incorporated in 1993, NIBSS is owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria and all licensed deposit money banks in the country. It provides payment infrastructure for interbank clearing and settlement, alongside services supporting identity verification and electronic payments.

Its services include the Bank Verification Number system, which supports customer identification and Know Your Customer processes, and infrastructure for point-of-sale payments. These services contribute to financial inclusion and the development of Nigeria’s digital payments ecosystem.

NIBSS holds ISO 27001, ISO 22301, ISO 20000, PCI-DSS and Nigeria Data Protection Regulation certifications.

Transactility is the commercial steward of jPOS, an open-source framework for payment transaction processing. Its products include jPTS, jCard and ISO/Bridge. Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, the company serves clients in more than 120 countries.

The jPOS framework has been used for more than 25 years to develop payment gateways, switches and transaction-processing systems, including those using ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 messaging standards.