Nigeria is working with the World Bank Group to identify gaps in its digital trade regulations as it seeks to align a pending digital economy bill and a planned e-commerce policy with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Protocol on Digital Trade.
   
The regulatory gap analysis is part of efforts to ensure that the protocol, its annexes and Nigeria’s domestic laws and policies work together, according to the National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian AfCFTA Coordination Office (NACO), Patience Okala.
   
Okala said Nigerian businesses had identified Ghana, Egypt, Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya as priority markets for expansion and regulators from the five countries were brought to Lagos to examine market-access requirements and identify areas where their processes could be aligned or mutually recognised.
   
Okala said the challenge, however, extends beyond aligning regulations. Businesses, she said, need reliable ways to verify trading partners, make and receive payments, transfer data securely and use digital systems that work across national borders.
   
She said Nigeria was one of three pilot countries selected for the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade (ADAPT) initiative, run by the AfCFTA Secretariat and the Tony Blair Institute, alongside Egypt and Kenya. A team had been inaugurated in Nigeria to work on the initiative, which is intended to advance interoperability between digital systems and provide a basis for implementing the protocol.
 
Citing World Trade Organisation records, she said African exports of digitally delivered services grew by 15 per cent in 2024, which she described as the fastest growth recorded in any region. She said this growth underscored the need for appropriate regulatory arrangements, adding that the protocol’s provisions and annexes need to align with Nigeria’s existing regulatory framework for it to be fully implemented.
 
Chief Executive Officer, Better Than Cash Alliance, Nshuti Mbabazi, said the implementation of the protocol must move beyond written agreements to practical testing of cross-border payment arrangements.
  
Responding to a question about how a Nigerian seller could receive payment for goods ordered from Kenya, Mbabazi said the framework must be tested through actual transactions to identify the barriers preventing businesses from completing payments reliably. She proposed identifying a small group of traders willing to buy and sell along the Nigeria–East Africa corridor and using their transactions to test the framework. The exercise, she said, would help establish the actual obstacles to trusted electronic payments.
   
She said the Better Than Cash Alliance would work to activate cross-border digital trade payment proofs of concept, adding that similar work had started in East Africa and could also be undertaken between Nigeria and East African markets.
   
According to her, businesses should be able to access information required to register and verify their operations online without physically visiting offices. She added that trusted digital identity recognised across participating African markets would help businesses establish legitimacy and build confidence among prospective trading partners.
   
Drawing on her experience in Aba’s textiles, leather and manufacturing sectors, Mbabazi said digital platforms have made communication with potential customers easier, but challenges persist when businesses need to make payments or move goods across borders as affordable payment arrangements and reliable ways to track goods until delivery is needed.
   
Mbabazi highlighted the potential of fintech passporting, under which a company licensed in Nigeria could expand into another participating African country without repeating extensive regulatory procedures. She urged African countries to work across regional economic communities, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the East African Community (EAC), to establish interoperable systems that make cross-border transactions as straightforward as domestic ones.
   
Head of Regulatory Unit at the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), Ibukunoluwa Owa, said secure cross-border data transfers were essential to building trust among businesses trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), urging Nigerian operators to understand and comply with the country’s data protection requirements before expanding into other African markets. She outlined different mechanisms for obtaining approval, including an adequacy route under which the commission assesses whether a destination country provides comparable protection.
   
Owa identified standard contractual clauses, binding corporate rules, certification mechanisms and codes of conduct as possible instruments for cross-border data transfers, subject to applicable requirements. She explained that contractual clauses could be adapted to specific transactions, while binding corporate rules could support transfers within groups of companies operating in different countries.
   
Owa said limited exceptions, including informed consent and contractual necessity, could apply in specific circumstances. However, she advised businesses that transferred data regularly to rely on adequacy decisions or transfer instruments rather than treating these exceptions as their principal route.
   
She identified digital identity, secure data transfers and regulatory convergence as important to building trust in cross-border digital trade. She said Nigeria was leading a regulatory harmonisation working group under the Network of Africa Data Protection Authorities to improve alignment of cross-border data transfer rules and make compliance easier for businesses operating across jurisdictions.
   
Representing the Director of e-governance services at the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Oluwatosin Lewis-Okoh, said digital trade required reliable broadband, interoperable systems and trusted identities, alongside payment and customs arrangements that supported transactions from identifying buyers and sellers to exchanging data, settling payments and processing customs documentation.
  
On digital identity and trust, she said businesses trading across borders need reliable ways to establish the identities of the people and organisations they trade with. She referred to changes involving public key infrastructure and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), explaining that trusted identity systems are key to establishing confidence between buyers and sellers in different countries.
   
She illustrated this with the example of a Nigerian fashion entrepreneur selling to a customer in Kigali.

For the transaction to succeed, the seller would need a verified customer identity, a payment arrangement that could settle across borders, electronic customs documentation and assurance that the customer’s personal data was protected. “If one of these links breaks, the sale breaks,” she said, stressing the need for integrated infrastructure rather than separate systems.