9 trends shaping Nigeria's consumer payments market

The colossal growth in digital payments is arguably the most notable bright spot in Nigeria's digital economy. 

Thanks to debit cards, point-of-sale devices, ATMs and mobile financial apps, Nigerians moved $613 billion in digital value in 2022—more than the combined GDP of Algeria, Morocco, Ethiopia, and Kenya. That’s also 16x what Nigeria processed ten years earlier ($37 billion in 2012, using parallel market rates in the reference years).

Nigeria's successes deserve a closer look to identify the key themes driving digital payments growth and the levers that will accelerate growth.

At Stears, we’ve done the heavy lifting, combing through data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to bring you insightful charts depicting Nigeria’s dynamic digital payments landscape over the last ten years.

These insights cover extensive themes from the dominance of account-to-account payments (bank transfers), why