Telecommunications firm, MTN has said that localising payment and other critical data could improve the speed of digital services by reducing the distance information travels between systems.

The position comes as banks, fintechs and other payment operators prepare to comply with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s requirement that payment transaction data generated in Nigeria be stored and managed locally by January 1, 2027. The policy has brought renewed attention to the quality of the infrastructure supporting Nigeria’s rapidly expanding digital economy, with operators now assessing how local hosting could affect performance and regulatory compliance.

The potential impact is significant given the volume of digital transactions moving through Nigeria’s financial system.

According to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Q1 2026 data, electronic payment transactions across six channels were valued at N1.053 quadrillion in the first quarter of 2026, up 2.85 per cent from N1.024 quadrillion in the same period of 2025. Nigeria’s National Payment Stack has also begun operating at scale, with the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System, as the platform surpassed 100 million successful transactions in late September 2026, up from 26.55 million transactions worth N1.4 trillion across 48 participating institutions in August.

Chief Enterprise Business Officer, MTN Nigeria, Lynda Saint-Nwafor, said localising data could make a measurable difference to the speed at which applications respond.

“When you localise data, latency is reduced because you don’t have the data traversing continents,” she said.

Her point is particularly relevant to digital services that depend on rapid exchanges between applications and databases, where information hosted across international networks may have to travel farther before a request is processed.

The benefit, however, is not simply about moving servers closer to users. Saint-Nwafor said organisations need to understand their existing architecture before deciding how and where workloads should be migrated, including the applications, infrastructure and partners supporting their operations.

“We need to come together as an industry, understand where the data sits and identify the partners with the capacity, competence and scalability to support a seamless migration. We also need to demonstrate good faith by showing that we are already taking concrete steps towards meeting the requirement,” she said.

The distinction matters as more financial services move towards cloud-based and digital-first systems. A recent report said banks and fintechs must reassess core banking systems, cloud applications, disaster-recovery arrangements and international connections as they work towards the CBN deadline, while the industry expects the policy to increase demand for local cloud services, data centres, connectivity and power. Local hosting could therefore improve response times for some applications, but the overall performance of digital services will still depend on the underlying network, application design, redundancy and operational controls.

The localisation exercise could consequently have implications beyond where financial data is stored. As operators move more workloads into domestic infrastructure, the quality of that infrastructure will determine whether the potential benefits of lower latency translate into faster and more reliable services for businesses and consumers.

The January deadline is therefore bringing a new focus to the performance of the infrastructure underpinning Nigeria’s increasingly digital financial system.