International transfers hit as NIBSS experiences second

By Chinwendu Obienyi

Nigeria’s electronic payment ecosystem suffered another setback on Tuesday as the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) experienced intermittent downtime, disrupting international money transfers and causing delays across banking and fintech platforms barely two weeks after a similar incident affected transactions nationwide.

The latest disruption, was said to have affected customers attempting to receive or send funds through several digital financial service providers, with some transactions remaining pending longer than usual.

Among the affected firms was LemFi, the cross-border payment platform, which informed customers that transfer delays were linked to issues at the country’s central payment switching infrastructure.

In a notice sent to users, the company explained that transactions were being delayed due to ongoing processing challenges within NIBSS and assured customers that funds remained secure while efforts were underway to restore normal service. “We are reaching out with an important notice about NGN transfer delays.

The central payment processing system used by Nigerian banks is currently experiencing downtime. This is affecting Nigerian bank transfers more widely, not just LemFi.

Because of this, some NGN transactions may take longer than usual, including: Transfers to Nigerian bank accounts NGN withdrawals to your bank account.

If you recently made an NGN transaction and it hasn’t been completed yet, your money is safe. We are monitoring the situation closely and will continue processing affected transactions as soon as service is restored”. the firm said.

Continuing, the digital platform said, “Our support team is currently receiving a high volume of messages, so replies may take longer than usual. If you have already contacted us, you do not need to create another ticket. We are sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience”.

The incident comes just 13 days after NIBSS suffered intermittent failures on May 13, a disruption that slowed electronic transfers across banks and fintech applications nationwide. At the time, several financial technology companies, including Carbon and Paga, attributed delayed transactions and failed transfers to issues originating from the NIBSS platform.

NIBSS operates the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) platform, the infrastructure that enables real-time interbank transfers and digital payment settlement across Nigeria’s financial system. The platform serves as a critical backbone for commercial banks, microfinance institutions, payment service providers and fintech companies, processing millions of transactions daily.

Financial experts say repeated service interruptions highlight the growing dependence of Nigeria’s digital economy on centralised payment infrastructure and the risks associated with outages in core settlement systems.

According to them, the renewed outage is expected to raise fresh questions about system resilience and redundancy within Nigeria’s rapidly expanding digital payments ecosystem, which has witnessed significant growth in transaction volumes over the past few years.

Although service providers continued to reassure customers that pending transactions would eventually be processed, many users expressed concerns over recurring disruptions and their impact on business operations, personal remittances and time-sensitive payments.

Aina Akintola, a student of University of Central Lanchashire, Preston, said, “Today is the second time that this is happening and i think its high time NIBSS sort these recurring issues because it is not too good for our digital payment systems. I just hope it gets sorted quickly so that funds can get to my family on time”.

As of press time, NIBSS had not issued a detailed public statement outlining the cause of the latest disruption or providing a timeline for full service restoration.

Similar uncertainty surrounded the May 13 incident, when the organisation did not immediately communicate an expected resolution period.

For businesses increasingly reliant on instant digital payments, the recurrence of outages within a short period underscores the need for stronger infrastructure resilience as Nigeria pushes toward a more cashless economy.