The Central Bank of Nigeria is readying a rule that will tie every new debit card to an ATM, a move aimed at cutting the long queues, outages and patchy cash supply that still frustrate customers.
CBN Governor Yemi Cardoso signalled the change on Friday through his Special Adviser, Fatai Karim, during the 2026 Committee of Heads of Bank Operations Conference. Under the planned policy, a bank must show it has the ATM capacity to serve every card it issues.
Cardoso’s office said the persistent failures at cash machines—and the sight of empty ones—keep chipping away at trust in electronic channels, even as digital payments surge. “Very soon, the Central Bank will be coming up with another policy to sanitise and improve the situation, particularly around how many cards banks issue relative to the number of ATMs they support. When cash access fails, whether due to prolonged ATM outages or uneven distribution, the credibility of the entire payment system is weakened,” the bank warned.
Karim said talks with lenders and other stakeholders are already under way and that the rule could land before the end of the second quarter of 2026. If it sticks, customers should see fewer out-of-order machines and steadier cash flow, while the payments network gets a credibility boost.
