Overview
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued its Open Banking Operational Guidelines, mandating Nigerian financial institutions to implement Open Banking infrastructure by a defined timeline. Bluechip Technologies was engaged to support multiple financial institutions through this implementation. I served as Business Analyst, responsible for translating the CBN regulatory directive into actionable technical and business requirements; and for ensuring the architecture delivered would satisfy the regulatory standard.
Challenge
The Open Banking directive was complex: financial institutions needed to expose APIs that allowed third-party providers to access customer account data (with consent) and initiate payments. The challenge was that the CBN Guidelines were written in regulatory language, not technical specifications. My job was to bridge that gap; reading the Guidelines, translating them into functional requirements, and working with technical teams to produce implementable specifications.
Different financial institutions had different core banking systems, different API capabilities, and different levels of readiness. A one-size-fits-all approach would not work; requirements needed to be adaptive while still meeting the minimum CBN standards.
My Approach
- Conducted a detailed review of the CBN Open Banking Operational Guidelines; annotating each requirement with implementation implications
- Authored Business Requirements Documents (BRDs) for Account Information Service (AIS) and Payment Initiation Service (PIS) APIs
- Produced BPMN process flows for all key Open Banking journeys: customer consent flow, data access, payment initiation, and revocation
- Documented API specifications covering authentication, authorisation (OAuth 2.0), consent management, and data schemas
- Delivered practitioner seminars to internal teams and client stakeholders on CBN Open Banking requirements
- Contributed sections to the Bluechip Open Banking white paper, covering the Nigerian regulatory landscape and implementation roadmap
- Facilitated workshops between financial institutions, technical teams, and compliance officers to align on interpretation of ambiguous CBN provisions