Come January 1, 2026, every kobo paid to any Federal Government agency must go digital no more direct cash handling, no more paper receipts. The Federal Treasury eReceipt (FTeR) and the new Revenue Optimisation (RevOp) Platform will run the show. The Federal Ministry of Finance dropped the hammer in Abuja on Monday, December 9, 2025, calling it the biggest clean-up of government money collection in ten years.
The ministry’s document spells it out clearly: “As from January 1, 2026, the Federal Treasury eReceipt (FTeR) will become the only valid and legally recognised receipt for all federal government transactions.” This mandate covers passports, driver’s licences, tax clearance, customs duties, court fees—anything paid to a Ministry, Department or Agency (MDA). All payments must now hit the Treasury Single Account (TSA) directly through approved channels like bank transfers, POS terminals, USSD codes, or online portals. While POS payments may still involve physical cash from a citizen, the critical change is that no MDA is permitted to handle, reconcile, or directly bank cash themselves, eliminating the traditional cash office and its paper trail.
RevOp is the technological brain behind this operation. It seamlessly links the TSA, the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), and every MDA into one live, unified dashboard. Every naira will be tracked from the moment of payment to the second it lands in government coffers. “TSA, GIFMIS, CBN, NIBSS, FIRS, and MDAs will now speak to each other in a unified digital environment through RevOp,” the ministry stated. The system is designed with real-time alerts to flag discrepancies aiming to stop MDAs from pocketing commissions or running side hustles with unapproved payment apps.
The primary goal is to plug colossal revenue leaks. Billions of naira vanish yearly when staff collect cash, issue fake receipts, or skim funds before remittance. “By outlawing unauthorised deductions, commissions, or charges taken before remittance to the TSA, the government expects to eliminate substantial leakages that currently occur within MDAs using unapproved PSSP platforms,” the statement read. In plain terms, this ends the era of informal “service charges” disappearing into private pockets.
Finance Minister Wale Edun’s team positioned this reform as core to President Tinubu’s anti-corruption and fiscal transparency agenda—the strategy is to minimise human intervention, eliminate cash handling vulnerabilities, and enforce complete digital audit trails. The directive is mandatory for citizens, businesses, banks, and payment service providers; non-compliance will result in blocked transactions. Banks have been instructed to route every government payment through RevOp gateways. Any MDA found directly collecting and managing cash after December 31, 2025, will be in breach of the law.
This move acknowledges potential implementation challenges, such as network reliability in remote agencies and the need for swift adaptation by both government staff and the public. However, the government presents it as an iron-clad, system-wide overhaul. While not Nigeria’s first cashless initiative—following earlier drives by the CBN in 2012 and 2020—this is the first federal-wide mandate of this scale and technical integration. The ministry hailed it as “a critical milestone in Nigeria’s anti-corruption and fiscal transparency agenda” and the “biggest consolidation of Nigeria’s digital public finance infrastructure in a decade.”
From January 1, 2026, when paying for any federal government service, citizens must be prepared with their bank cards, phones, or online banking details.
