5 entries.
The CBN unveiled its Payments System Vision 2028 in Abuja on 1 June, the roadmap promised when the Payments Service Providers Committee launched in April (cpm-2026-0019). The headline target is 95% financial inclusion by 2028, but the regulatory story is stablecoins: the document references them dozens of times and proposes an enabling framework recognising fiat-collateralised stablecoins as a distinct category of digital monetary instrument, with CBN licensing, full high-quality reserve backing, daily attestations, monthly audits and real-time supervisory visibility. The eNaira is repositioned as payment infrastructure rather than a consumer product, and the vision contemplates regulated stablecoins in live cross-border corridors for trade and remittances. Five years after ordering banks away from crypto, Nigeria's central bank is designing stablecoins into its payments architecture. The framework's legal form is the thing to watch next.
Ten weeks after quietly surveying fintechs on crypto (cpm-2026-0011), the BCEAO convened an international conference in Dakar on 8 May on crypto-assets and digital innovations and their implications for monetary and financial stability. The agenda was regulatory, not promotional: stablecoin implications for monetary policy, prudential supervision and regional cooperation, cybersecurity and financial integrity. The Governor's stated objective was a proportionate regulatory framework coordinated at the regional level. Read the trajectory: the central bank of the eight-state UEMOA zone has moved from silence to intelligence-gathering to public convening inside six months, the standard runway a central bank builds before it regulates. Whatever framework emerges will bind Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo simultaneously. Source in French; translation ours.
CBK posted senior and managerial roles for virtual asset licensing and compliance while the VASP regulations were still in consultation. Read the sequencing: the regulator is building supervisory capacity ahead of the final rules, which points to licensing applications opening soon after gazettement, plausibly in Q3 2026. The hiring also confirms the division of labour in practice. CBK takes payment-side VASPs and stablecoin issuers; CMA takes exchanges, brokers and tokenization platforms. Regulators who staff up intend to enforce. Re-verified 6 July 2026: the final regulations remained ungazetted and licensing had not opened.
The CBN inaugurated a joint Payments Service Providers Committee bringing the central bank, commercial banks, mobile money operators and fintechs to one table, after Nigeria's payment system crossed the quadrillion-naira mark with 11.2 billion transactions in 2024. A new Payments System Vision was promised within a month of launch. For digital assets the interesting part is the grey zone the committee will inevitably touch: cross-border payments, stablecoin-adjacent services and BNPL currently sit between licensing categories, and a coordination body is where those lines get redrawn. Re-verified 6 July 2026: the promised vision arrived on 1 June as the Payments System Vision 2028, with stablecoins written into it (cpm-2026-0024).
The NBE declared all birr-paired peer-to-peer crypto transactions illegal unless expressly authorised, citing FX manipulation, fraud and missing AML/CFT safeguards. It is Ethiopia's first named regulatory action on crypto. Read it as currency policy rather than crypto philosophy: after the July 2024 reform programme and a roughly 200% birr devaluation, the ban closes an arbitrage channel. The same statement confirms a comprehensive digital asset framework is in development with global peer regulators; the prohibition is scoped narrowly and authorisation is explicitly contemplated. When that framework lands, it would be East Africa's second formal licensing regime after Kenya. The ban is the signal; the framework is the story. Re-verified 6 July 2026: the framework had not been published; the Financial Intelligence Service was reported to be developing crypto transaction regulations, with wider legislation still expected in 2026.
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